Borderlands 2: Retold
by BorderFan1234
Summary: The story of Borderlands 2 retold with all six vault hunters, basic plot is maintained while situations and dialogue are expanded and reworked. Plus a lot of original content and dialogue and more than likely a few new sidequests and villains somewhere down the road. Some coarse language and a couple of gory situations but nothing really too outlandish for the borderlands setting.
1. Chapter 1: just another story

**Authors note: Hello all, this is my first ever attempt at writing fan fiction. I started this to practice and hopefully improve my writing, and because I really liked the characters from Borderlands 2, but was slightly disappointed by the lack of dialogue between the player characters and the world. This is my take on what happened if all six vault hunters started out the journey together. Please review if you can, all constructive criticism welcome!**

**IMPORTANT: since it's hard to add drama if death is only a respawn, I've decided to completely ignore the Hyperion respawn station things, and later if any other game centric element would interfere with the story I will take them out too. **

_So you want to hear another story eh?_

"Great – more dead vault hunters. Handsome Jack's been busy."

Axton's eyes snapped open when he heard the gloomy robotic voice. Half frozen, and half buried underneath a growing blanket of snow, he could barely make out in his blurry vision the small yellow robot with a shovel. Axton grunted with pain and moved his arms forward a few inches.

The robot dropped its shovel in surprise. "Wait a minute – you're not dead!" The robot instantly became cheerful and loud. "Yes! Now I can get off this glacier! Claptrap, your metaphorical ship has finally come in!"

Axton winced as the obnoxious voice assaulted his ears still ringing from the explosion. He took a couple of deep breathes and pushed himself up. Feeling, most of it pain, was slowly returning to his cold and sore body.

He reached for his Dahl standard issue pistol to silence the chatter-bot. Fortunately for it, the pistol and all his other equipment were gone, destroyed or blasted away by the explosion. He fumed as he thought of the train; how'd he let himself fall into such a simple trap? He should've bailed the moment the killer robots appeared. And he would've if the other three hadn't been there.

"Allow me to introduce myself," the robot continued cheerfully, unaware of its inattentive audience, or the howling snowstorm around them. "I am a CL4P – TP steward bot, but my friends call me Claptrap! Or they would if any of th…"

Axton tuned out the annoying robot and hobbled around the piles of half buried frozen corpses behind Claptrap; he had to find his weapons, or at least his darling Dahl not-so-standard issue Sabre Turret. Ten years in the Dahl military and he'd never been in an explosion big enough to rip that turret off his back; but the force of this blast had even blown away his ECHO communicator.

"I've got something for you!" said Claptrap, catching Axton's attention for the first time. "Here - take this ECHO co-"

"Hey, that's my ECHO communicator!" Axton said irritably, cutting Claptrap off as he limped quickly over and snatched the familiar device. He reattached it and waited for the utilities to boot, but couldn't help feeling bad for the now silent robot. "Thanks," he added, guiltily.

The robot started shouting again, making Axton regret apologizing as he continued to search for his stuff. He spotted his tomahawk lying on the snow a couple of feet to his left and shuffled over to grab it, but when he did the big snow pile beside the tomahawk exploded as a tall shirtless psycho jumped out. Great. This day just couldn't get any better; first killer robots, now half-naked psychos.

Claptrap gave an audible gasp when it saw the stranger. "Another survivor? Could this day get any better?" it yelled ecstatically, before restarting its loud introduction. "Allow me to introduce myself! I am CL4…"

"SH-SHINY MEAT P-POPSICLE!" screamed the shivering psycho through his face mask.

"Why does everyone have to shout!" shouted Axton, agitated. Then, noticing the psycho's buzzsaw axe, Axton brought his tomahawk up defensively. "Bring it on," he said, trying to bluff some energy back into his body.

The two men stood a few feet apart, eyeing each other silently, their quiet hostility disturbed only by Claptrap's continued introduction.

But a girl's muffled coughing broke the two out of their standoff, and both turned their attention to the blue-haired, tattooed woman crawling out of the snow behind the psycho.

"Another one?" cried Claptrap, somehow even louder than before. "How many of you guys are there?"

The psycho immediately leaped towards the woman, filling Axton with a sense of dread. Not wanting his only sane companion to be brutally axed, Axton forced his aching muscles to obey and jumped with an animalistic yell at the psycho's exposed back.

"No!" Axton thought he heard the woman shout, as he himself was engulfed in some kind of dark matter bubble. He watched from his floating prison with relief and increasing curiosity as the psycho helped the woman out of the snow, getting her on her feet.

With a wave of her left arm, the woman dissipated the bubble around Axton and he plopped into the snow. He got up quickly and brushed himself off.

"Wow, that was, yeah. Please don't do that again." Axton now recalled how the woman had used the mysterious power on the killer robots aboard the train. "But that's what I get for playing hero I guess," he joked, trying to lighten the mood.

The woman's face showed a hint of a smile and she said, "Sorry, but I couldn't let you kill him." She motioned at the psycho, who had retreated away from the two and sat shivering alone in the snow.

Claptrap rolled over and introduced himself for the third time, but Axton raised his voice and talked over the nuisance. "So, uh, I never got your name on the train, I'm Axton by the way. Nice to meet you."

"I'm Maya, nice to meet you too," Maya shouted back.

"Is he with you?" Axton asked, pointing at the sniffling psycho. "And aren't you cold?" Maya seemed perfectly comfortable in her jeans and tank top, while he himself was shivering inside his Dahl all-terrain combat uniform.

"No, I'm fine," said Maya, and then hesitantly added to explain, "I'm a siren."

"A siren huh? Cool." Axton nodded and tried not to sound too amazed. What a day: Survive huge explosion, meet friendly psycho, and find one of six existing sirens in the whole universe; he needed to buy a lottery ticket ASAP.

Maya seemed relieved by Axton's tepid reaction, and she glanced over at the sitting psycho. "And he's not with me, but he's okay."

"You know him then?"

"No, well, I guess? When I was boarding the train, I was attacked and he saved me."

"Now that's a story I got to hear."

Maya shrugged and smirked. "Not much more to say, I guess he must've snuck aboard to follow me."

"A scary psycho stalker. No big deal huh?" Axton said with amusement.

Maya laughed. "Well, I am a siren so... yeah, no big deal."

"Wow, you're a siren?" Claptrap asked, excessively amazed. "I know two sirens now! That's so cool!"

"Are you serious?" asked Maya, losing her composure. "What's her name? Where is she? Does she-"

Axton coughed loudly behind Claptrap to get Maya's attention, and then he twirled his left trigger finger in a circle on the side of his head; to drive the point home he also crossed his eyes and stuck out his tongue a little.

Maya got the message and sighed, half embarrassed and half frustrated at being taken in by the robot.

"Her name?" Claptrap clutched his boxy head in deep concentrated thought. "Oh man I could never remember her name. Okay, let's see - there was Rolank, and Brice, and Mordesigh…" Claptrap's arms fell to his sides and the robot began moping.

Axton finally spotted the backpack sized storage unit containing his turret, and he soon returned to them with it firmly attached to his back. The blizzard was intensifying around them, and he was about to suggest they move into the igloo shelter thing not too far from them when Claptrap jumped with upstretched arms.

"Lily! Her! Name! Was! Lily!" The robot declared triumphantly. "My central processor may be broken, forcing me to think out loud, but my memory hasn't failed me yet! …I wonder what it's like to have a bellybutton."

"Oh, Lily, that's nice," said Maya gently, humoring Claptrap out of newfound pity; then she shot Axton a quick glare filled with disdain. Axton felt a new wave of guilt and helplessness wash over himself as he tried to mouth an excuse.

"Don't you want to know where she lives?" said Claptrap, innocently taunting Maya.

"Sigh, where does she live, Claptrap?"

"…Er, I don't know. But the resistance will!"

"The resistance," repeated Maya with raised eyebrows.

"Yeah, now that I've met some mighty Vault Hunters, I can finally join the resistance in Sanctuary, take vengeance against-"

"I CAN'T FEEL MY FLESHSTICK!" The psycho jumped up and ran for the igloo, seemingly fed up with the cold and Claptrap.

"Hey!" Claptrap shouted after the fleeing psycho. "Don't you dare interrupt me! You hear me buddy? I said, don't you dare interrupt me!"

Axton couldn't tell if his ears were bleeding from the cold or the noise, so he covered them with his hands, solving both problems as he followed the psycho towards the igloo; finding his weapons wasn't worth listening to anymore of Claptrap's nonsense.

"Why don't we talk more inside?" Maya suggested to Claptrap, while thinking to herself how strange this world outside the monastery she grew up in was.

"Good idea minion number one!" said Claptrap, with such optimism that Maya couldn't bring herself to protest the nickname; at least she was number one. "Now – come, come, friend. Let's get you inside."

"Friend," Maya said to herself, as they trudged towards the igloo. She knew what the word meant from books, but finding it used on herself was a new and… happy, experience. She smiled without realizing it as she followed Claptrap towards the two men beating at the surprisingly sturdy igloo door.

Axton turned to greet the two latecomers, but then noticed two other figures approaching as well, veiled by the now raging blizzard. He indicated the potential threats to Maya, who luckily still had her Maliwan SMG.

Claptrap scurried past them to unlock the door while Maya leveled her gun sight at the two approaching shadows and waited. Axton gripped the turret deployer on his back with increasing apprehension. Everyone but Claptrap fell silent as they prepared for battle.

"Woah! Don't shoot amigos, it is I, Salvador," exclaimed the shorter, stockier figure, who with raised arms and open palms stepped into the small circle of light casted by the lamp outside the igloo.

Axton and Maya breathed a sigh of relief when they saw him, and recognized now the other shadow as the ninja.

"_Snow in my boots / I am sad and very cold / Go in the igloo_" said the tall dark figure, surprising everyone; he hadn't spoken a single word to them aboard the train.

"Was that a Haiku?" asked Maya, catching the ninja off guard.

"_I am impressed / Not many understand / But how did you know?_"

"Er, wait hold on, I can do this," said Maya happily and cleared her throat. "Locked in a church / I was so bored / read a lot."

"_Ah, I understand / what else have you read or heard? / h…_"

"Hey, how'd you find us?" Axton asked Salvador aside; the two had quickly grown bored with the conversation between Maya and the ninja as they waited for Claptrap to open the door.

"Hell, it was easy." Salvador replied with a laugh. "I thought we were doomed at first though you know? Me and him, lost in the blizzard and blasted to god-knows-where. But then we heard you guys shouting, so we just followed the noise."

Salvador pointed with his thumb at the psycho. "Where'd you guys find that freaky mother?"

"It's a friend of hers," said Axton, pointing at Maya with his eyes.

Salvador shrugged, and fell backwards into the snow with a sigh of relief. "Now if only I could find my guns…"

"Aaaaaand open!" declared Claptrap confidently for the seventh time. But this time the door actually opened, and the five survivors poured into the warm shelter, pushing past and ignoring Claptrap, who was babbling on about something or another again.

Once inside, everyone but the psycho gathered around the makeshift fireplace in the center. It appeared to be burning a combination of money, scrap metal, and guns. No one cared enough to question how the latter two things were burning, though Salvador scowled every time a bullet ignited. Axton squinted at the fire and wondered if anyone else saw the mercenary remains deep within it.

"You can't do that to guns man, it's disrespectful," Salvador grumbled to himself, as the whistling Claptrap tossed another shovelful of junk into the hungry fire.

Axton took a deep, warm breath and prepared to address everyone. But a faded, fuzzy image appeared on his ECHOnet Heads Up Display, distracting him: that's the smuggest looking angel I've ever seen, Axton thought to himself, and noticed he wasn't the only one seeing something on their ECHO HUD: Maya, the ninja, and Salvador were all staring upwards in that familiar expression of someone busy browsing the ECHOnet. The psycho though was sitting in the corner, quietly looking at his hands.

"I'll explain everything soon," the angel said soothingly. "But know this – you're alive for a reason, and I… am here to help you."

Before anyone could reply to it, the image and voice disappeared, leaving the four troubled witnesses to stare at each other. Maya was first to speak:

"Um, everyone saw that, right?"

"Ai yai yai," muttered Salvador.

"_She hacked our ECHO / Not to be taken lightly / Angel or demon?_"

"Alright, so we all heard it," said Axton forcefully, putting his meager leadership training in the Dahl army to use. "Let's not worry about that. Right now, we need to focus on getting out of this mess."

The other three reluctantly nodded in agreement.

Salvador yawned and stretched his short, muscular arms. "Don't you dare, don't you dare say it," he said threateningly all of a sudden, surprising everyone, including himself.

The ninja remained silent and Maya looked confused, only Axton seemed to know what Salvador was referring to. "Salvador," he said with a sigh. "That's just a stupid stereotype. No one was going to-"

"WHY'S TRUXICAN NOT SLEEPY?" interrupted the psycho.

Salvador whirled around and leaped at the racist. "Vamanos Puta!"

"I FEEL THE LUCHA! I TASTE THE LIBRE!" shouted the psycho gleefully, as the two men wrestled on the slippery, snow covered floor.

"Hey, bad! No fighting in here! Take it outside!" yelled Claptrap, while slapping the two sweaty wrestlers repeatedly as if they were misbehaving pets.

Axton went to the nearby cards table and sat down. He wiped the dealt out cards to the floor, also causing one of the carefully seated and posed inactive CL4P - TP units to fall from its seat. He laid his head down in his arms and sobbed quietly.

The ninja moved to the shadows and leaned against the igloo wall, leaving Maya standing alone by the fire, studying the chaos. She wore a happy, yet baffled expression. The outside world sure was crazy and loud, but there was something wonderful about that; she couldn't quiet put the feeling into words.

"What's a Truxican?" she wondered out loud.

* * *

"Um, Hello? Anybody out there? Hello?" Snow drifted down the side of the metal container as another kick was delivered to it from the inside. The snowy plain returned to silence, only to be disturbed again after a minute by the same voice.

"Hello? I'm locked in here and my arm's broken and I could use some help!" the voice shouted louder, echoing out of the container. "…There was gunfire, and explosions! I know you guys are there!" Whoever was inside began pounding the metal shell repeatedly.

Attracted by the noise, a gigantic four-armed ape known as a bullymong lumbered over and sniffed the box. It cautiously tapped the exposed metal several times.

"Finally! Geeze what took you guys so long?"

The bullymong answered with an earth-shaking roar.

"…Uh oh."

The beast easily picked up the shipping container and tucked it under its arm. The creature let out a triumphant roar and dashed back towards its stash with the prize.

"Yeah, great idea Gaige," said the voice in the box. "Let's stowaway on the mystery train, it'll be fun. What could go wrong? You'll have an adventure!"

The bullymong roared and pounded the metal box like a drum as it ran. Gaige shouted back hysterically, "I HATE PANDORA!"


	2. Chapter 2: all jokes aside

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hi all, from writing the first chapter, I've found out I have a rather bad habit of editing and adding to the chapter after I publish them, so you might have to go back and reread the first chapter if you read it like the day I published it. Sorry, I'll try to keep edits to a minimum after I publish a chapter from now on. Also I'll be sure to warn you in the next chapter's A/N if I do make any dramatic changes. Anyways, enjoy! And leave a review, I need more criticism, thanks :) **

"So a soldier, a siren, and a hunter walk into a bar and-"

Maya slowly blinked at Salvador, stopping the truxican mid-joke. She contemplated telling him she was a siren. Axton had tried to save her from the psycho, so she'd felt safe letting him in on the secret, but she wasn't sure how she felt about the ninja and dwarf yet; she'd had enough of betrayals.

She returned her attention to the dying fire. "I don't understand, how in the world did Claptrap keep this fire burning?" She tossed some more scrap into it, only managing to smother it. "Arghh."

"Okay that one's not that funny," admitted Salvador. "What about this one, a brick flew up in the air-"

"No, more, jokes. Please," said Axton. He was playing solitaire at the cards table, while balancing the chair on the two back legs.

Salvador frowned at Axton from the other side of the igloo. "Well if you got a better idea-"

"FEAR NOT THE JESTERS OF NO," said the psycho sitting next to Salvador, and then gave the truxican a punch in the arm.

"Thanks Krieg, you're a true amigo," replied Salvador, and shoved the psycho hard. Like his abuela always said, the fastest way to make a friend was to wrestle with them.

"Why do you call him that?" asked Maya, having given up on the fire.

"Who, Krieg?" Salvador slowly picked something out of his nose with his left pinky. "Dunno, just saw it on his underwear when we were wrestling."

"Ew."

"HUH? WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?"

Axton stood up, and stared back at Salvador, Krieg, and Maya. "Well, it was nice meeting you all, but I think I'll be on my way now.

The ninja sighed and shifted his meditative pose a little in the dark corner behind the furnace. "_I sit here and wait / So eager to move onward / But it's all in vain._"

Axton turned to leave but felt a hand wrap around his right arm. A shudder ran up his spine at the siren's touch; he could feel the pulsing energy flowing through him from her palm; it probably wasn't healthy.

"Wait," said Maya, concerned. "You heard what she said the second time. We have to follow the robot, he'll get us to sanctuary."

"Oh yeah? You know who else listens to the voices in their head?" Axton nodded in the direction of Krieg.

Maya let go of his arm. "You don't know what he's been through."

"Do you?" asked Axton darkly.

After a moment of silence, the igloo door opened and Claptrap rolled in. "Minions! I have returned!"

Krieg, Salvador, and the ninja stood up.

"About time," said Salvador.

"Did you find anyone?" asked Maya, approaching the robot.

Claptrap shook his whole body. "No, but I'm sure somebody's out there. Mayyybe if I check aga-"

"_I am bored as hell / I would like to kill something / Can we friggin go?_"

"We better get moving then," said Axton cheerfully and headed towards the igloo's other exit. "Before the ninja slits our throats."

"But what if Claptrap's right? We'd be leaving someone to die," protested Maya as they all followed Axton out into the wasteland.

Axton opened his arms to the clear blue sky. "Welcome to Pandora Maya. Where people die, and I don't care."

"Your actions don't match your words, Axton," Maya and Claptrap walked ahead to take point since she was the only one with a gun.

Axton knew she was referring to his earlier attempt to save her. "What can I say? I'm a sucker for heroics. And there's nothing heroic about dying from boredom."

"Now around here the creatures are dangerous," explained Claptrap, lecturing the vault hunters as they marched through the snow. "Especially the bullymong I call Knuckledragger."

"Uh, what's a bullymong?" asked Maya, and gripped her Maliwan SMG a little tighter.

"Bullymong!" shouted Claptrap and retreated. "They're coming from the wall sphincters! Defend me, Minions!"

Blue, four armed apes popped out of the holes in the cliff wall to their left. And without warning or provocation, they stampeded headlong towards the group.

The ninja pulled out his digistruct katana and dashed towards the animals. "_Mine._"

The high pitched whine of a buzzsaw axe revving up pierced through the racket of grunts and roars coming from the approaching bullymongs. "WHO WANTS THE FIRST SLICE?" Krieg laughed maniacally as he charged towards the bullymongs with his axe held high.

Axton and Salvador watched from the sidelines as Krieg and the ninja cut their way to the center of the horde of bullymongs while Maya used her power and Maliwan Fire SMG to pick off any strays that dared leave the pack attacking the two melee enthusiasts.

The bullymongs lunged all at once from every direction at the back to back ninja and psycho. Krieg jumped up and tackled one of the beasts mid-air. The bullymong opened its mouth wide, showing off rows of sharp teeth as it tried to bite off the psycho's head. But Krieg swung his axe into the inviting face, splitting it in half with the force of the impact. The two landed in the snow with Krieg atop the thrashing bullymong. The spinning buzzsaw axehead splattered blood all over him, the bullymongs, and the snow as he jumped off the dead beast and back into the fray.

"STOP DYING AT ME!" Krieg shouted, more annoyed than angry, as his buzzsaw axe chewed its way through the countless bullymongs piling up around him.

Meanwhile, the four bullymongs that had leapt at the ninja collided headlong into each other as the hologram between them vanished. Then an invisible blade slashed its way effortlessly through the four, painting the snow underneath them red with blood. The ninja flickered back into visibility above the neat pile of flesh that used to be four bullymongs.

Salvador watched with envy as the ninja and Krieg continued the massacre. "Ahhhh! I can't take it any longer, I need a gun!" He kicked a snow pile filled with garbage on his left. Bones and guns exploded out of it and scattered around him.

"Those are bullymong piles," explained Claptrap from behind him. "They're filled with the remains of unlucky vault hunters."

"They're like piñatas, but better!" Salvador charged with a rifle in each hand towards the fighting, firing indiscriminately at the horde.

Axton helped himself to an assault rifle and shield from the pile, and killed a bullymong that'd surprised Maya. She looked over and waved her thanks.

"A sucker for heroics," he said to himself, and started pouring lead into the churning wall of blue flesh before them. Using his ECHO communicator, he then designated the other four, and also Claptrap, as friendlies before throwing down his turret. "You fellas meet the missus?" he shouted at the top of his lung, trying to catch everyone's attention.

The folded up turret popped out of its storage unit and whirred to life. Axton felt a great deal of pride as the machine assembled itself in front of him within two seconds. It wasted no more time introducing itself to the bullymongs though, instead opting for a more informal, rapidfire greeting. Axton stopped shooting for a second to admire the turret's handiwork. "That's my girl!"

The flood of bullymongs from the wall sphincters slowed to a trickle, before stopping completely. The five vault hunters were left standing on mounds of bullymong bodies, with every inch of the wasteland below them soaked red in blood.

"BLOOD SLUSHEE FOR YOU AND ME," sang Krieg as he slid down his pile of bullymong corpses.

The ninja shook the blood off of his katana and sheathed it. A red hologram of the number zero shined ominously in front of his all concealing helmet. "_It was all too easy / I require a challenge / This was not enough._"

Salvador tossed his spent guns away. "Man, these guns are broken. Worst, day, ever."

"They're just out of ammo," said Axton, as his turret packed itself up beside him.

"Even I know that," said Salvador with a laugh. "I'm talking about how they don't keep shooting when I hold down the trigger."

Axton stared at Salvador for a minute, determining if he was joking. "Not all guns are automatic you know."

"Autowhatnow?"

"You have to keep pulling the trigger for some guns."

A disgusted look came over Salvador's face. "Ugh, why would anyone want that? What is wrong with them?"

"_Some prefer elegance,_" answered the ninja, as he pulled a sniper rifle out of a bullymong pile.

"Pffbt, whatever," said Salvador, and equipped himself with two new machine guns from the same pile.

"Come on, let's go," said Maya, with her nose pinched shut, trying not to puke from the awful stench of dead bullymongs.

The group carried onwards, and made it all the way to a tall, dead end cliff without incident when the ground started shaking underneath them.

"Ugh – AGAIN?!" complained Claptrap as the rumbling subsided. "Jack's tearing Pandora apart to find the vault. They say Jack's drilling operations are causing those earthquakes. That, or your mom just got outta bed. Zing!"

Axton kicked the robot over the cliff, and Claptrap fell headfirst into a pile of snow way down below them.

"Axton!" Maya shouted disapprovingly.

"What? At least I let'em finish their joke this time." Axton jumped over the cliff, and hopping from ledge to ledge, eventually landed on his feet next to Claptrap at the bottom. "Besides," he shouted up at them. "Terminal velocity's so low on this planet the falls are harmless!"

"Watch out!"

But Maya's warning came too late, and Axton turned just in time to see a bullymong, at least three times bigger than any they'd encountered, leap out at him from behind a cliff corner.

The larger of its two right arms swung into him like a wrecking ball, and Axton felt himself flying across the snowy field before blacking out.

The others jumped into action when they saw the bullymong swat Axton away like a bug. Salvador, Krieg and Maya jumped down the cliff and landed directly in front of the snarling beast while Zero remained high up above them with his sniper rifle.

The huge bullymong charged at the three vault hunters, who rolled and jumped to the sides to avoid the attack.

"Oh no," gasped Maya when they turned to see the bullymong holding Claptrap upside down by the wheel.

"Ah, it's Knuckledragger! MY EYE! AHHHHHH!" screamed Claptrap, as the bullymong ripped the robot's only eye out of its socket. It dropped the limp robot and stood dangling the eyeball like a toy.

"_Get it away from the cliff, I need a clear shot," _said the ninja from above them.

Maya and Salvador ran away as ordered, but Krieg ran towards the giant. "EYEBALL FOR EYEBALL AND WE'LL ALL GO FAT!"

Maya and Salvador turned and began shooting at Knuckledragger, but the bullets just bounced off its skin.

"Now'd be a really good time to use that power of yours Maya," Salvador cried over his gunfire.

"I can't, not on something that big," said Maya, gritting her teeth.

Knuckledragger crushed the charging psycho into the snow with an open palm, and then lifted the larger of its two left arms to deliver the finishing blow. But as it was about to drop its fist on Krieg, the uplifted hand became trapped inside an orb of darkness. Maya grunted with pain as Knuckledragger roared and struggled to free the trapped hand.

Krieg jumped back on his feet with a shout, "NIPPLE SALADS!"

Knuckledragger swung at Krieg with the free lower arms, but the psycho rolled underneath the attack and jumped onto the bullymong's thick left leg. "IT'S STRANGLING TIME!"

The dark orb around Knuckledragger's hand disappeared as Maya collapsed into the snow. Salvador dropped his guns to pick her up with both arms and then retreated. "You made me stop shooting," he said to her sadly.

Maya gave Salvador a weak smile. "Sorry."

Salvador grinned as he ran. "De nada."

"STOP HITTING YOURSELF!" shouted Krieg as he climbed around Knuckledragger and onto its back. The monster let out a shriek of annoyance and continued slapping itself, trying to get the nimble psycho off. Krieg jumped forward onto Knuckledragger's head just in time to avoid being pancaked between the cliff and its back.

"GIVE IT BACK!" Krieg howled, and plunged his hands into Knuckledragger's eyes. The bullymong wailed and ran blindly forward using all six limbs.

Krieg leaned back and pulled hard. With a sick plop, he triumphantly ripped the monster's eyes out. He jumped off the falling beast and ran to show Salvador and Maya his bloody prize. "WHERE ARE YOU GOING, SHOW AND TELL ISN'T OVER YET!"

Knuckledragger stumbled back up behind Krieg and let out a defiant roar. Its scream though was cut short by the thundering crack from the ninja's sniper rifle. Knuckledragger fell again, this time sending up a wave of snow; and the snowflakes raised by the corpse drifted gently back down into a growing pool of blood.

Zero jumped down and joined the others. "_A most confused death / Dead before he even knew / Where I had struck from._"

A turret popped out of the snow nearby, followed by Axton. "Who's next, huh?!"

Axton looked from the dead bullymong to his comrades. "Oh. Nice."

The derisive look they were collectively giving him made Axton really uncomfortable, but he knew how to win them back. He pointed at his turret and smiled. "Sorry, boys, I've got turret syndrome! Get it? 'Cuz of the turret... sorry."

The sound of something pounding on metal interrupted their awkward silence.

"What could that be?" said Axton hurriedly, diverting the others attention. The group spread out in the direction of the sound.

"Aye, come look at this guys," Salvador waved everyone over to where he was standing. A metal buried container lay half buried a hole in a hole in the ground; it seemed this was what Knuckledragger had been busy with before they showed up.

"Get me out of here!" begged the girl apparently trapped inside. Maya used her power to lift the metal crate out and dropped it on solid ground.

They approached with caution, and Axton bent down to examine the lock: thankfully, the crate wasn't locked. He opened it and ducked as a redheaded teenage girl jumped out over him.

"I'm free, I'm freeeeeeee!" sobbed the girl at the sky. She kneeled down and hugged the snow covered ground while still sobbing, and then proceeded to make a snow angel.

"Um, are you alright?" asked Maya, walking up to the girl.

The girl leapt to her feet. "Hell, yeah!" But the robotic left arm dangling uselessly at her side said otherwise. She turned and gasped with surprise when she saw the other four who had helped rescue her. "Awesome, are you guys bandits?"

"No, we're not," said Axton impatiently. "Look, introductions can wait, we got to-"

"SHOW AND TELL ISN'T OVER YET!" Krieg ran up and shoved the pulpy eyeballs he was holding into the girl's face. Losing interest in the eyeballs, he left them on her face, and went to find his buzzsaw axe. "EATING SPINACH WILL MAKE YOU STRONG!"

"It's in my mouth," the motionless girl burbled out from behind the large fleshy sacs stuck to her face. "Umm you guys, it's in my mouth!"

The blinded Claptrap rolled over to them, holding its own eye. "Good job, minions! What a great day, Knuckledragger's dead, we found a girl in a box, and look," Claptrap dangled its eyeball. "I even found my eye!"

Maya helped the new girl peel Knuckledragger's eyeballs off her face, and then said, "Why don't we introduce ourselves? Might as well while we wait for Krieg." Maya looked over at Krieg, who was merrily playing with his buzzsaw axe and the bullymong corpse. "I think we could all use a break anyways."

"Allow me to introduce myself," started Claptrap. "I am a CL…"

"I'm Axton, a commando," said Axton with wry resignation, he gave a slight nod of his head to the group and continued talking over Claptrap. "Ten years of Dahl military experience at your service." He gave them a casual salute.

"I'm Maya," Maya bit her lips. "I'm a siren." She waited for the words to sink in before continuing, almost jokingly, "and if anyone tries to capture me, I'll incinerate their brain."

Zero was next in the circle, and after a moment of silence he finally said, "_I'm Zero._" The red hologram reappeared in front of his helmet. "_Just tell me what to shoot._"

"I'm Salvador, and I'm a GUNZERKER. Dibs on everything!" shouted Salvador with a laugh.

"A gunzerker, really?" asked Axton.

"What?"

"There's no such thing as a gunzerker. What does that even mean?"

"Hey Zero's just a number! I didn't hear you complaining about that."

The redheaded girl's eyes shined brightly, it was her turn. "So I can just make something up?"

"Hell yeah you can," replied Salvador with a wicked grin.

"Then I'm Gaige! The Mechromancer!" shouted Gaige dramatically while Maya and Salvador laughed, even Axton couldn't help it and smiled slightly.

"SHINY MEAT BICYCLE!"

Everyone but Salvador stared in horror at Krieg, who'd managed to cut open the bullymong, and was now snuggling comfortably inside of its flesh, with only his head sticking out of the chest. He ducked his head back inside the meatbag, and they could barely make out what he said next: "DUKE LANDRUNNER, YOUR DADDY I AM!"

"Ew. Ew, ew… ew," said Maya, and closed her eyes to think of happier things.

"Oh and that's Krieg, the psycho," said Salvador matter-o-factly.

Gaige turned eagerly back around to face them. "Hey, this reminds me of a joke I heard at school once!"

"School?" said Salvador slowly, perplexed by the foreign word.

Gaige giggled for a second to herself, remembering how funny this joke was. "Okay, so a soldier, a siren, and a hunter walk into a bar and…"


	3. Chapter 3: Liar's Berg

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hi all, I didn't change the last chapter much, only elaborated a bit on the fight with the pack of bullymongs and some grammar and haiku fixing, so if you read it the day it was published you could go back and read it if you want. Health vials will be part of the story, though I won't introduce them just yet and they're not gonna be the miracle cure like they are in the game. I've updated this story three times this week, that's not a pace I intend to maintain, so I apologize if any of you are dissapointed by the probably week(s) long silence between chapters from now on, but rest assured I intend to follow this til the end, and probably some of the DLC's too though I haven't played them all yet. Please review and or favorite or follow if you enjoy the story, as that's what gives me the motivation to keep writing this, I really, really would love some more criticism, I have tough skin I can handle it so don't spare me the rod guys! Anyways, I hope you enjoy this third chapter!**

What an ugly planet. The handsome man closed his eyes for a moment to forget the view outside his space station window. When he reopened them it was still there; the purplish blue marble called Pandora, suspended in space against a backdrop of twinkling stars. He thought about how easy it'd be to just blow it up; the moon base had more than enough firepower to do so. No, it was too valuable - and besides, once he had his way with it, Pandora would be just as beautiful as him. He put his perfectly manicured right hand on the window, covering up the planet. Much better.

* * *

Maya took a deep breath; having just finished getting Gaige up to speed on what was going on. "Anybody else need a break?" she asked the others, hoping she wasn't the only one that was winded from their hike through the jagged, icy landscape. Salvador and Gaige also voiced their fatigue and the group voted to take a break. They found a nice shallow cave to rest in nearby, and were soon happily sheltered from the freezing wind.

"So his name is actually Handsome Jack?" asked Gaige, amazed. "Wow, and I thought people at my high school had egos."

"What did you call yourself earlier again?" Axton reminded her. "Something something girl genius?"

"Yeah, but it's true," said Gaige defensively, her twin ponytails bobbing up and down as she talked. "You think a normal high schooler gets expelled AND arrested for her science fair project?"

"Science, fair?" Salvador said the words experimentally, trying to find a meaning from the combination of the two; he was like a caveman smacking two rocks together, trying to make a spark.

"THE VOLCANOES OF SODA SHALL BUBBLE AND COVER US WITH THEIR SOUR MEATBALLS," explained Krieg. Salvador smiled and nodded, pretending to understand the psycho.

The group trekked on through the snow, and Claptrap eventually stopped them at another cliff. The vault hunters looked down the cliff at a small, dilapidated town. The robot pointed with eyeball still clutched in hand at the town. "There it is: Liar's berg, that's where my old pal Sir Hammerlock lives! He'll be able to put my eye back in."

"And hopefully take your mouth out," said Axton quietly to no one.

"Ahem, girl genius here? It's about time you let me take a look at that eyehole."

Claptrap slapped Gaige's eager right hand away. "Sorry girl, much as I'm sure you'd like to jam your fist into my skull, optic surgery is best left to professionals."

Gaige opened her mouth to say something indecent but Zero cut her short.

"_Don't go down just yet / The town is filled with targets / Let me take them out._"

Zero displayed the view from his sniper rifle's scope on everybody's ECHO HUD. Everyone except Krieg and Claptrap watched as Zero showed them exactly where each enemy was in the town. All in all, there were twelve armed to the teeth bad ass bandits inside the small town. The vault hunters ducked back behind the ledge to stay out of sight.

Axton felt the old, familiar impulse rising again, urging him to charge in to the fray. But he shook the idea out of his head and began formulating a plan to get them through without casualties; a challenge he wasn't used to. He turned to study his team and figure their odds.

There were six of them plus Claptrap. The high schooler though had no weapon, no shield, and was sporting a broken mechanical arm, so she was useless. Zero said he still had five shots left in the sniper and Maya, Salvador, and Krieg were fully equipped. It'd be close, but if Zero could take out his five fast enough, they stood a good chance of getting through this without even a scratch.

"I've got a plan," Axton announced. "Me, Maya, Salvador and Krieg will jump down to distract the enemy. Once we have them busy, Zero will pop up out of his hiding spot up here and flank them with his sniper."

"Hey, what about me?" asked Gaige, pouting.

Before Axton could say a word to her, they were interrupted by a public ECHO message being broadcasted on all channels.

Axton scowled as he listened to the same cocky voice he'd heard on the train.

"Hey kiddos. Jack here – President of Hyperion. Lemme explain how things work here: Vault Hunters shows up. Vault Hunters look for the new vault. Vault Hunters get killed. By me. Seeing the problem here? You guys are still alive. So, if you guys could just do me a favor and off yourselves, that'd be great. Thanks, pumpkins."

"What an asshole," said Gaige, hoping that somehow her insult would reach the man. And as if in reply, Handsome Jack came back on and said:

"Attention, people of Pandora! Handsome Jack here, offering six million bucks to whomever brings me the heads of the Vault Hunters who've just arrived in Liar's Berg. Oh, and I'm still offering a reward for Roland, the mass-murdering leader of the Crimson Raiders. Good hunting, bandits!"

"What a gigantic asshole!" declared Gaige.

"Handsome Jack here again, just wanted to let all you bandits in Liar's Berg know, they're up on the cliff outside of town, to the left of that really big boulder."

The Vault Hunters ducked as their general area was sprayed with bullets. Most of the bullets hit the cliff wall that shielded them but some whizzed overhead or ricocheted off the big boulder next to them.

Axton leaped over to Gaige and covered her mouth before she was able to shout something even meaner.

"Damn it!" shouted Axton as he pushed Claptrap and the high school girl further away from the cliff edge. "Zero, flank them!"

Zero was already moving away from them, crawling along the cliff, but the cocky, taunting voice came on again.

"Oh and they have a sniper, he's crawling towards you guys along the cliff."

"Damn it all!" Axton pulled the turret off his back and tossed it out in front of him as he ran off the cliff. He smiled as he fell through the air and the turret deployed mid-air beside him, now this was more his style. He landed with a thud and quickly dove for cover behind the turret, which had thrown up a large energy shield to form a protective radius around itself. A grenade and a dozen bullets bounced harmlessly off the blue force field and back at the bandits, who had formed a solid perimeter behind the town gate, and shot at him from behind the cover of rubble and rusted walls.

"I SCREAM FOR YOU SCREAM!" screamed Krieg as he too jumped off the cliff. He landed next to Axton and then rushed off recklessly towards the bandits. Blue sparks popped all around him as his energy shield deflected incoming bullets.

Salvador jumped down while firing a machine gun in each hand at the bandits, providing Krieg with much needed covering fire. Maya followed right behind Salvador and the team focused their fire on the target of her power. The unfortunate bandit fell dead to the ground, riddled with bullet holes.

A reckless idea came into Axton's adrenaline high brain, and he set his turret to provide covering fire before shouting to Maya and Salvador. "Let's go! Now or never guys!" The three ran to the side of the turret to give it a clear field of fire.

"YOU get a bullet! And YOU get a bullet! EVERYBODY gets a bullet!" roared Axton, shooting as he ran and clearly enjoying himself, with complete disregard towards his rapidly depleting shield level.

Because their shields were depleted, Zero was able to kill five of the bandits in rapid succession with his sniper rifle. The surviving bandits ducked back under cover to avoid the sniper and let their shields recharge. Seeing an opening, Maya tossed a grenade high over the town wall and focused her mind on her siren power. She thrust her left hand out at the grenade, trapping it just above the wall in a dark orb; this orb though was bigger than the ones before and also acted like a gravity well, dragging the three nearby bandits out of cover then trapping them inside the bubble. They screamed terribly as the vault hunters unloaded into them until the grenade exploded, imploding the bubble and killing all three.

Krieg had managed to put one of the bandits into a chokehold, and was slowly walking towards the remaining two while using his hostage as a meat shield. He snapped his hostage's neck once he got close enough and hacked the closest retreating bandit to pieces as Zero materialized behind the other.

"Please don't kill-" Zero cut the bandit's cry short with a beheading; the headless man slumped to his knees before falling over sideways.

A cold wind swept through the now silent town, burying the fresh corpses under a light frosting of snow. The vault hunters let out a collective sigh of relief, they did it.

"That, was, AWESOME!" squealed Gaige.

The other's turned to see the school girl gawking at them from a few feet back.

"Hey! I thought I told you to stay on the cliff," barked Axton, annoyed.

"It's fine! Look I even have a gun and shield." Gaige excitedly showed off the equipment taken from their newly deceased owners.

"Have you ever even fired a gun?" asked Axton, becoming irritated. He still wasn't sure why, how, or what a high school girl was doing on Pandora.

"It's not that hard," dismissed Gaige, as she attempted to aim one armed with her assault rifle at a nearby barn. She pulled the trigger hard and shot several times; every shot missed. "Eh, accuracy's overrated anyway."

"_Once your arm is fixed / Maybe you will hit something / But this was just sad._"

Claptrap rolled past them and up a small hill towards a house with its own walled in yard. The robot shouted as it went, "Hey, Hammerlock! Since my minions just saved your town, you wanna do your bestie Claptrap a favor and repair my eye?"

As the vault hunters followed the robot, they heard two more messages go out over the ECHOnet. First was a fat viking:

"Alright, boys – this is Captain Flynt! I want you to find those Vault Hunters and bring 'em to me! NOW!"

Second was a black hunter:

"Spectacular – first Captain Flynt's bandits attack, then Claptrap shows up! I must have been horrifyingly cruel to puppies in a previous life to deserve this kind of treatment. I say, Vault Hunters – could you kill Claptrap for me?"

Axton, still smirking, messaged the hunter back. "Unfortunately not Sir Hammerlock, we need him alive to get to Sanctuary."

"Ah I see, well, that is a shame. Come to my shack then, and I shall restore Claptrap's sight. First, I shall shut off the electrical fence for you."

The Vault hunters followed Claptrap up to the clearly still electrified gate.

"Please stay back, Vault Hunters" shouted Sir Hammerlock from the house's second floor window. "Let Claptrap go first."

The robot babbled on and on about friendship as it walked straight into the fence, the shock from touching the gate knocked Claptrap out on its back, silencing it.

The gate was finally disarmed and the vault hunters heard Sir Hammerlock shout from the first story window, "Apologies, but when Claptrap speaks, I feel my brain cells committing suicide, one by one. I shall be out directly."

The vault hunters walked around Claptrap and into the yard. The door of the house was kicked open by a mechanical right leg, causing Gaige to gasp as out stepped a dapper black man in a safari hunting outfit. He saluted them with his mechanical right arm and a stiff upper lip. "A pleasure to meet you all, Vault Hunters. I am Sir Hammerlock – Hunter, scholar, gentleman. At your service."

The vault hunters took turns shaking Sir Hammerlock's hand and introducing themselves. Gaige purposefully extended her broken left arm, and the metal forearm swung uselessly from the elbow.

"Oh my," said Sir Hammerlock, with both eyebrows raised behind his broken glasses. "A fellow amputee. Well met, I am Sir Hammerlock, and you are?" He grabbed her mechanical left hand with his equally artificial right hand and shook.

"Gaige, and the pleasure's all mine," said Gaige, trying to sound seductive. "You wouldn't happen to have any tools I could borrow to fix my arm, would you?"

"Ah of course, how rude of me. I apologize." Sir Hammerlock pointed back at his house. "You'll find the toolboxes in the second drawer of the cabinet that's right below the picture of my ex-boyfriend."

Gaige walked into the house with a devastated look on her face while Axton, Salvador and Maya laughed quietly together.

"Now, let's see what we can do about our talkative little robot." Sir Hammerlock walked up to the collapsed Claptrap and pulled the eye out of its right hand. He inspected the eye socket briefly before shoving the eyeball into it. "That should do it!"

Claptrap jumped back on its wheel. "Ha-Ha! I am ALIIIIIVE!"

"Oh, dear. He's talking again," said Sir Hammerlock, and shook his head slowly.

Gaige dropped the tool box where she was standing right behind Sir Hammerlock. She had an indignant look on her face and was grinding her teeth. "That's it? That's all it takes to fix the eye?"

"Yes, it's such a simple procedure why, I believe a lobotomized bullymong could do it," Sir Hammerlock gave a short laugh before catching his mistake. He cleared his throat seriously. "Not that I'm implying you guys are dumber than a lobotomized bullymong or anything."

Maya walked over and patted Gaige on the shoulder. "Don't worry, we all know you could've fixed him. Claptrap's just… stubborn."

"Just pretend the robot's not there," suggested Salvador. "That's what I do."

"Thanks," said Gaige, cheering up. She gave Maya a sudden hug. "You guys are the best."

Surprised by how tightly Gaige squuezed her, Maya looked around perplexed. "Hey, where's Krieg and Zero?"

* * *

Krieg stared blankly ahead of him while sitting on the crumbling tombstone. The graveyard contained only a few other spread out rocks, but from this distance it was impossible to tell if they were more broken tombstones or just badly placed rocks sticking out of the snow.

Krieg tossed his buzzsaw axe up in the air again. He watched the handle swing all the way around, and stared at the dull blood crusted saw blade spinning lazily in its groove; the sight always brought to mind the image of a toy pinwheel spinning in the wind. Sometimes he also heard the sound of a little girl laughing. He couldn't understand why the image or sound came or why it made him sad, but it never failed to quiet the other voice and that was enough. The axe fell and his eyes followed it. He caught the handle in his right hand without looking, his eyes were already locked on the ninja that had appeared before him.

"_I wish to fight you / Spar with me, and don't hold back / Do you understand?_"

Without a word, Krieg got off the tombstone and walked away.

"_Don't ignore me._" Zero cut the tombstone in half with his katana, causing Krieg to spin around and throw something. Zero reflexively sliced the object in half but the two halves of the snowball landed on his chest anyways. "_Are you mocking me?_"

Krieg glared at Zero and said with difficulty, "Get away, before I kill you."

Zero bent his knees and assumed a combat stance; He held the katana two handed and out on his left with the tip pointed at Krieg. The holographic red zero reappeared in front of his helmet. Then he said crossly, "_Don't worry. You won't_"


	4. Chapter 4: Stop It's Tea Time

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hi all, this chapter's a little shorter; didn't mean for it to turn out that way but sometimes you just gotta go with the flow. Don't recall making any changes to chapter 3 so if I did they were insignificant. So from this chapter I kinda figured out my plan: I'm going to have longer real chapters for the action and getting from one part of the main quest to the other, between these chapters are gonna be shorter vignette chapters where the vault hunters get some much needed r and r at the mission hubs and stuff, I got one more vignitte chapter planned here before they get to boom bewm so look forward to that. Also as always please leave a review, and or fave and or follow thanks!**

"Blake! Get me some goddamn popcorn." Handsome Jack snapped his fingers impatiently while his eyes remained glued to the holoscreen television in front of him. The satellite video of a snow covered graveyard illuminated the dark room with a blinding whiteness, and Jack squinted as he watched the two figures in the video stare each other down. Without a sound, the ghostlike vice president of Hyperion brought forth from the shadows a large bucket of popcorn and dropped it on the couch seat on Jack's left.

"Will that be all?" asked Blake.

The man's snooty yet sinister voice sounded just the way Jack imagined a murderous butler's voice would sound, and he casually wondered if the popcorn was poisoned as he grabbed a handful without looking away from the holoscreen.

"Uh yuhp," said Jack with a mouth full of popcorn. The vice president of Hyperion disappeared back into the shadows behind the couch.

"I left the dossier on the two unexpected members of the group under the bucket," said the vice president from the darkness behind Jack.

Jack glanced away from the TV for a moment to pick up the folders and flip through them. What a weirdo, thought Jack, who still uses paper in this day and age? The psycho's file only told him what he already knew: that the man was a product of Hyperion's human eridium experiments. The girl's folder though, was a little more interesting. "Girl genius from Eden-5? I didn't know you had a sense of humor, Blake."

Blake said nothing. Jack shrugged and tossed the folders back on the couch. "Nothing we can't handle. Doesn't matter if they've got fifty super geniuses on their side, I've already outsmarted them." Jack aimed with his fingers at the two vault hunters on his TV and fired his imaginary guns.

"Bang."

* * *

Krieg's heavy breathing was all that could be heard between the two statuesque combatants, each waiting for the other to make the first move. Nothing happened until a cool breeze passed through the graveyard, inadvertently upsetting the balance. Zero and Krieg simultaneously sprinted forward while thinking the other moved first. Right before the two collided, a dark bubble burst into existence between them, forcing the two to jump back.

"Is this really the time to be fighting each other?" asked Maya angrily, with SMG in hand as she walked up to the two of them. "We've got enough people trying to kill us thanks to Jack. So why don't we just cut this crap out?" She looked from one masked man to the other; she couldn't tell what either of them was thinking.

Krieg lowered his buzzsaw axe. In a quiet but still insane tone he muttered, "I'll never stop the killing. NEVER!" He turned and ran back towards Sir Hammerlock's house. Maya flipped her SMG's safety back on and sighed. She stared at Zero in respectful silence.

After a few seconds Zero turned to face her. "_I apologize / I rarely lose my temper / Just wanted to spar._"

Maya smiled in relief. "Of all the people here, you just had to ask him? Back in the monastery, my training included all kinds of melee weapons you know."

Zero projected an open-mouthed smiley face in front of his helmet.

Sir Hammerlock took a sip of tea from his teacup and gave a pleasured sigh as he sank further into his cushy recliner. Axton, Gaige, and Salvador sat opposite him on the sofa, and Sir Hammerlock nodded with satisfaction as the three lifted their teacups too and drank.

Over her raised cup, Gaige's eyes slowly wandered, taking in the disheveled living room stacked with books and random animal trophies. She was just about to compliment Sir Hammerlock on the variety of animal parts he possessed when the man put his teacup down on the table between them and said, "I see our fearless leader Jack is looking for you. Charming fellow, isn't he?" Sir Hammerlock clenched and unclenched his fist in ire. "Spouts drivel about bringing peace to the frontier, then shoots unarmed men, women and children like it's going out of style."

"Looking for us? No, He's already found us," said Axton bitterly. "I bet this very moment he's up in his space station, watching us sip tea."

"And yet, here we are, still alive," noted Sir Hammerlock, puzzled. "I expected him to have blown us all to hell with an orbital bombardment by now. Not that I'm complaining. Perhaps toying with us amuses him, though we can't ever know for sure; I doubt anyone can discern the thoughts of that psychopath."

They finished their tea in silence, no one wanting to venture another guess as to why they were still alive.

"Uh, nice animal parts," said Salvador. Gaige put her good arm over her head in exasperation.

"Hm? Oh, thank you," said Sir Hammerlock, brightening at the change of topic. "I actually came out here to research the bullymongs for my almanac you know."

Axton and Salvador looked at each other, wide-eyed, and attempted to recall how many bullymongs they'd killed on the way to Liar's Berg.

Guessing their thoughts, Sir Hammerlock laughed and said, "Oh don't worry friends, those bullymongs are a damn nuisance. I doubt we could kill enough to make a difference even if we dedicated the rest of our lives to the task." He took off his hunting cap and inspected it thoughtfully. "Speaking of tasks, I was thinking some bullymong fur would go rather nicely on this cap of mine. I'd be happy to reward you-"

Sir Hammerlock was interrupted by an explosion outside the house. Several stacks of books fell over and the teacups vibrated atop their saucers on the coffee table. All of them jumped to their feet.

Sir Hammerlock grabbed a nearby hunting rifle and walked to the window. "What the devil was that?"

The house was located on a hill and from the living room window they got a good view of the area outside the town wall. About twenty bandits were coming towards the town. One of the psychos in the lead threw another grenade at the house; it was a longbow type grenade, as no human could possibly toss a grenade the distance between the bandits and the house. They saw a tiny flash as the grenade teleported from the psycho's hand to the house wall. Another explosion shook the house, and this time the window shattered.

"Let me handle this," said Axton. His ECHO communicator projected a small holoscreen in front of him, and he pressed the displayed button that read "Deploy". Earlier, he had put the storage unit containing his Sabre turret on the roof, and now he listened smugly to the familiar whirs and clicks of the turret self-assembling above them.

The smarter bandits slowly came to a halt as they realized what had appeared on the roof of the house, leaving only two psychos, fearless and rambling, to maintain the attack. The turret unloaded into the two would be trespassers, stopping them dead in their tracks and letting them know just what Ms. Sabre thought of their behavior. The turret ended things by firing a rocket, as if to punctuate its statement with an exclamation mark; the leftover bandits retreated without waiting for another word from her.

"What ho!" said Sir Hammerlock, delighted. "Yes give em the ol' one two. That'll teach them to mess with us."

"You're going to run out of ammo if you keep using your turret like that," noted Gaige, as she peered out the window at the remains of the psychos.

"My lady friend won't be running dry anytime this decade," said Axton with a grin. "She's got her own storage deck units and I made sure to stock them up extra well before we left Dahl. It was a parting gift from the company, if you will."

"That is awesome," said Salvador, imagining what kind of paradise Axton came from that they'd give away ammo so indiscriminately.

Sir Hammerlock leaned his rifle against the wall by the window. "Well, I don't think those buggers'll be back anytime soon. More tea?" He held a metal teapot up optimistically. The three vault hunters heartily agreed; the chill from the broken window was beginning to get to them.


	5. Chapter 5: ECHO

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: for those of you who don't know, Gaige's backstory is given as ECHOlogs, you can find the transcript on the borderlands 2 wiki page for Gaige, this next part won't make too much sense without that background. Next chapter is going to be a longer one since the action will be resuming. They'll at least make it past boom bewm, looking forward to writing that. Read, review, and enjoy!**

**PS: Fast travel network stations will be present in this story, but no respawn stations. Also, I hope it's become obvious by now that the vault hunter's powers don't follow the limiting rules of the game, so Axton can have his turret out as long as he wants and stuff.**

Chapter 5:

GAIGE'S ECHO LOG 05 *

_Hello, my twenty thousand something subscribers! It's been a while since my last update but guess what suckas? I'm a bona-fide Vault Hunter now! This group of Vault Hunters freed me from this box, uh, long story, anyways they begged me to join them and I figured, why not, it looked like they could use the help of a GIRL GENIUS! _

_Turns out the colossal douchenozzle known as "Handsome" Jack is actually killing all the Vault Hunters to keep the vault to himself. Scumbag. I just knew those heroic stories about him on the news were too good to be true! You can't trust mainstream media guys, it's all controlled by the system! Argh, I can't wait to take down Jack and his stupid corporation. Down with the system!_

_Too bad right now we're holed up in this little town called Liar's Berg, at least the bandits aren't attacking anymore thanks to Axton's turret, he's one of the Vault Hunters, said he used to be a commando or something. _

_They told me we're following this annoying little robot called Claptrap because an angel lady told them to, I thought they were crazy but then she came back on the ECHOcomm and I was like woah, she's using her own private channel and the encryption is like, mega complex. _

_Anyhoo, she told us about Captain Flynt's boat and apparently that's what we gotta use to get off this miserable glacier. I mean, I noticed a broken fast travel network station in town I could easily fix and that'd get us to Sanctuary like, right now, but then I wouldn't get to fight any bandits! So I kept quiet about it and tomorrow we're going to steal Captain Flynt's ship and I am so, PUMPED!_

_Achoo! I can't wait to get to someplace warmer… Well, that's all for now! Don't worry daddy, and mom, I'm having a ton of fun here on Pandora and I even made some friends! I broke my robotic arm though, uh long story, but I've almost fixed it. Oh man I can't wait to show off Deathtrap, I can already see the surprised look on their faces! This is gonna be so epic hahahahaha, AHAHAHAHAHA!_

END TRANSMISSION

"Uh, why are you laughing to yourself like that?" Axton stared quizzically at Gaige from the basement stairwell.

"Ummm, no reason," replied Gaige. She picked up the screwdriver next to her on the workbench and returned to work on the prone left arm lying on the tabletop. The metal fingers twitched as she slowly tightened the final screw inside of the wrist. "And done!"

She stood up and flexed her newly repaired arm twice, testing every axis of movement. Satisfied, she packed up the toolbox and took it with her up the stairs. She sniffed the air as she approached Axton. "Do I smell food?" she asked eagerly, realizing how hungry she was; she hadn't eaten all day.

"It's why I came to getcha. Come on, everyone's already outside."

Gaige followed Axton out of Sir Hammerlock's house and noticed that nighttime had arrived while she was working in the basement. The other vault hunters had made a campfire in the yard and everyone, including Sir Hammerlock and Claptrap, was gathered around it, cooking meat and chatting.

"Welcome," said Sir Hammerlock, turning from the fire while holding his skewer of meat over the crackling blaze. He tipped his newly decorated hunting cap at them; a tuft of bullymong fur was sticking out of it like a big feather. "We've got fresh bullymong meat, and also some canned goods if you'd prefer that instead."

"I'll try some bullymong meat," answered Gaige immediately; the pungent, exotic smell of burning bullymong meat was beginning to make her mouth water.

"Strip the flesh, salt the wound," cheered Krieg as he watched Gaige skewer a slab of meat onto the end of a sharp stick. He himself was holding a wooden club that he'd managed to impale several large pieces of meat on.

"Pass me the salt," requested Gaige, and caught the saltshaker from Salvador with her robotic left hand.

"Hey, you fixed it, nice," said Maya from across the fire.

A secretive smirk appeared on Gaige's face. "Heh heh, check this out guys." She put the saltshaker down and waved her left arm imperiously in front of her. She remembered an appropriate line from a really old movie she'd seen and figuring she might as well pull out all the stops, she opened her mouth and shouted, "Klaatu Barada Nikto!"*

The fire flickered in the wind as nothing else happened. Sir Hammerlock, Axton, and Maya exchanged concerned looks over the fire; Gaige was too shocked to notice them.

"Hey you feeling alright kid?" asked Axton, and tried to remember what else they taught him to say in Dahl's psychotherapy training seminar. "Uh, up and at them soldier? Fight through the pain, maggot? Dahl is master, Dahl is all. Wait, why did I say that? Oh my god they brainwas-"

"Is something wrong Gaige?" asked Maya.

Gaige snapped back to reality. "Wha- how- I mean, a robot, my robot didn't come! I was summoning Deathtrap, it was gonna be so cool," whined Gaige as she vainly waved her robotic arm in front of her.

Gaige looked away from her hand, and noticed now the sad look of pity on everyone's face. "No, wait, I'm not crazy! That Klaatu line's from a movie! It's super super old so you guys probably haven't seen it but-" She could tell she wasn't helping her case, and decided to just eat quietly while moping.

Sir Hammerlock took off his hat and put it over his heart. "Sigh, this planet breaks everyone eventually." He shook his downcast head.

"Don't worry," said Salvador with a mouth full of meat, spraying the fire with little bits of bullymong flesh. "I had an imaginary friend too when I was a niño, his name was El Grande, and he was this huuuge gun and he shot out bigger guns and those…"

"At least this is delicious," murmured Gaige as she gnawed on the shish-kabob; it tasted way better than Knuckledragger's eyeballs, and way, way better than the junk they served in school. She was just beginning to cheer up when Claptrap started talking.

"Cheer up, minion number six!" said Claptrap, and waved his uneaten stick of meat in the air. "You can always summon me, Claptrap! But you can call me Deathtrap if that's what you're really into, I won't judge. You sick, sick pervert."

Gaige finished her skewer and stomped over to Claptrap. She imagined smashing the robot into scrap metal with her cybernetic left arm and then putting its body on a skewer to cook over the fire; she smiled as she snatched the uneaten stick of meat out of Claptrap's hands.

"Hey! I was going to eat that," complained Claptrap and watched in helpless horror as Gaige devoured the meat.

"Mmm," said Gaige, and rubbed her belly with satisfaction, just to spite the robot.

"Yawn, I think I'll go take a nap now, g'night fellas!" She walked over to where Zero was sitting against the yard wall.

Gaige climbed atop the thick wall and lied on her back on the flat snow just above the ninja. The snow melted a little thanks to her fire-warmed body and she closed her eyes and sighed with pleasure as the snow chilled her.

She wondered how much longer her school uniform would last her in Pandora's harsh environment; short skirt and high socks weren't exactly survival gear.

Zero lazily turned his head up to look at her. "_Stars and space above / While fire and ice surround me / Safe and sound I dream._"*

Gaige opened her eyes to gaze sleepily at the cloudless sea of stars. No horizon was visible on the edge of her vision; all she saw was the glittering black heaven and Pandora's moon. It was beautiful.

She frowned; there was one thing about the view she didn't like though, and it was shaped like a giant letter H. She lifted her left arm and hid the ugly Hyperion space station behind her hand. Much better.

*(ECHO LOG 1-4 can be found on borderlands 2 wiki, on Gaige's page, I had nothing to do with them, this is just my unofficial continuation of those.)

*Phrase from original The Day The Earth Stood Still scifi flick, she says it sometimes when summoning Deathtrap.

*Tell me what you think about my haikus!


	6. Chapter 6: Captain Flynt

**Author's Note: Hi all, wow I really wracked my brain over this chapter, and the next one looks just as tough what with introducing all the NPCs. I probably won't be updating for a while and the updates are going to slow down dramatically what with school starting and my other projects crying for attention, but don't worry I have a lot of things I want to do with this story so I won't be abandoning it anytime soon! As always, read and review, I hope you like it! **

Axton walked into the dark living room and flicked the light switch on. Undisturbed by the sudden light, Gaige continued snoring inside the patchwork sleeping bag on the floor. Axton tiptoed past a stack of books to reach her.

"Wake up kid."

Gaige grumbled in her sleep and withdrew her head into the sleeping bag. "Ten more minutes daddy, school can wait zzz…"

Axton sighed impatiently as he stared at the wormlike bag at his feet. He firmly prodded it with his boot. "Come on kid, get up. You've slept nine hours already, and I'm not your dad. You're on Pandora, remember?" He could tell she wasn't used to Pandora's ninety hour rotational period yet. He glanced out the nearby window. It was pitch black outside; they had a long night ahead of them.

The worm at his feet took a deep breath in and out, making the fabric cocoon shrink and then expand. Axton paused. He thought he could hear sniffling. But it was so faint it might've just been his ears; they were still messed up from the explosion after all. A high school girl, not a soldier, he reminded himself. He reached up with his right hand and squeezed the wedding ring chained around his neck. He quietly backed away and flipped the light switch off as he exited the room. "Sorry."

He stepped out of the house and was greeted by the other vault hunters and Sir Hammerlock, well rested and busy eating a breakfast of canned fruit and more bullymong meat.

"Hey! Where's minion number six?" shouted Claptrap.

Axton ignored the robot and walked over to the smoldering campfire. "Didn't feel like waking her," he said with a dismissive shrug to the others. "She's a horrible shot anyways and now we've got one less warm body to look after." He chuckled as he stared into the fire. "I'll come back and get her once we get the ship. I bet you guys she'll still be asleep then haha."

"Good morning Pandora!"

Everyone turned to see Gaige jump out the front door. She landed like a spring and bounced to her feet, with a big smile on her face.

Axton went to take his turret off the roof as Gaige joined the others around the campfire.

"I'm glad to see you're awake Ms. Gaige," said Sir Hammerlock as he offered her a cooked skewer of bullymong meat. "I was worried we'd lost your refreshing company on this initial expedition. It would've been a damn shame."

Gaige nodded happily in agreement as she devoured her food.

"Yeah sleepyhead, we almost left you behind," said Salvador. "Then Axton would've had to come back and fetch you."

After breakfast, Sir Hammerlock brought out his cache of weaponry and ammo for them and the group left town loaded with enough ammunition to take down a rakk hive.

The ECHO HUD made the dark tundra easier to navigate, but Zero insisted he had perfect nightvision and they agreed to let him take point. Zero and Claptrap led the way while Gaige lagged behind, still tinkering with her left arm, trying to summon Deathtrap.

They didn't get far from town before they spotted the bandit base nestled against a cliff, a stronghold of scrap metal built around a half-sunk battleship stuck in the ice. Claptrap pointed to the open ravine through the cliff behind the guardian ship. "Captain Flynt's base is past there, but we'll have to get past Boom Bewm first, you better watch out, he's one of the ripper clan, as…"

The vault hunters slowed down so that Claptrap was left talking to himself way in front as a group of bandits charged out of the base towards them. "Ah, defend me minions!" Claptrap turned and rolled back to them as fast as he could. "I don't want to be Flynt's torture doll again!"

Zero nonchalantly aimed his sniper rifle and fired while bullets flew past him and the other vault hunters.

The bandit's shield was strong enough to absorb the headshot, but the impact still knocked the man on his back. When the bandit sat up he found out the hard way his shield couldn't withstand a second shot.

The other bandits ran back to their stronghold and hid behind cover, making themselves easy targets for grenades and Maya's power. By the time they reached the first fortifications all of the bandits were dead. The radio sewn into the jacket of a nearby corpse blared as Captain Flynt berated the dead men.

"What is WRONG with you boys?! Just kill those slaglicks so's we can get our reward!"

"Too bad we're unstoppable!" shouted Salvador at the top of his lungs and fired his two machine guns into the air.

More bandits came out from further within the shantytown but they didn't stand a chance against Salvador, who lowered his bullet hoses and mowed them down. A few survivors retreated back towards the derelict ship, dropping down onto the wreck to hide behind various outcroppings on the deck.

"That is a big turret," commented Axton, as the group chased the bandits to the ship deck. He admired for a moment the large twin cannons on the other side of the deck, not really minding that it was aimed directly at him until Captain Flynt came on the ECHO.

"Here's what's gonna happen, Vault Hunters." Flynt took a heavy breath filled with wrath. "My first mate Boom Bewm is gonna kill ya, Jack's gonna pay us, and I'm gonna play hopscotch in your chest cavity!"

A yellow armor wearing bandit jumped out from behind the turret and stood posing on top of it for a split second. "Light the fuses, bitches – I'm ready to BLOW!"

Pyrotechnics exploded behind Boom as a similarly dressed midget with a jetpack rocketed into the night sky behind him.

Axton stood mesmerized by the absurd display as Boom leaped onto the control station welded atop the turret. Everything moved in slow motion as Axton stared into the dark barrels of the battleship guns. So this is how I die, huh, lame.

Boom screamed as he was lifted out of the seat by Maya's phaselock. "Get your head out of your ass Axton!" Maya grabbed Axton's left arm and threw him behind cover.

"You loco amigo?" scolded Salvador as he caught Axton. "You almost got turned into Axton paste."

"Sorry," said Axton as he rubbed his head. "Don't know what came over me."

Zero tried to shoot Boom but the bandit blasted himself out of the bubble with a grenade. Boom digistructed a rocket launcher as he ducked behind the turret. "It's Boom Bewm time!"

The flying midget dived towards the vault hunters and unloaded his explosive shotgun. The vault hunters scattered as the spot they were at was peppered with explosions. "BEWM!" The cackling midget flew off to reload.

"A flying midget?" cried Sir Hammerlock as he ran. "What is this nonsense? What's next, a midget riding a bullymong?"

A midget riding a bullymong clambered up the side of the ship and joined the fray.

"Fascinating, absolutely fascinating," said Sir Hammerlock, as he dodged bullets and made mental notes for his almanac about the new symbiotic relationship.

"Someone take out the damn midgets!" shouted Axton as he tossed out his turret and pursued Boom to the other end of the ship.

Gaige took a peek from her hiding spot: Axton and Maya were keeping Boom busy while Salvador tried to shoot down the flying midget; Zero had disappeared and Krieg was fighting off five psychos with his buzzsaw axe. She ducked back down and frantically worked on her cybernetic left arm. "Come on, Deathtrap!"

Something landed in front of her and she looked up to see the bullymong riding midget towering over her. "Frack you buddy!" she hollered as she rolled to her left, but the bullymong caught her with a swipe, sending her flying towards the deck wall.

"Ugh!" The impact knocked the wind out of her and broke her shield, and she fell to the floor with blue sparks flashing around her as the shield attempted to recharge. She opened her eyes and saw the midget aiming his SMG at her. She raised her arms instinctively.

The cybernetic arm flashed as digistruct particles appeared in front of her and rapidly assembled into the large red chassis of Deathtrap. The bulky robot torso hovered protectively before Gaige, deflecting the bullets being fired by the midget on top of the bullymong. "Deathtrap!" shouted Gaige joyously as her shield recharged. Getting attacked must've kickstarted DT's antibullying programming. "Get 'em, boy!"

Deathtrap fired an energy blast out of its Cyclopean eye, melting the bullymong's face and setting the midget sitting on the head on fire. Then, a digistructed claw grew out of Deathtrap's left hand and the robot flew towards the bullymong with the claw raised high in the air. Within seconds both bullymong and midget were just bloody chunks.

"Robot: One! Uglies: Zerooo!" declared Gaige as she picked up her dropped assault rifle. She stuck out her tongue at the dead bullymong and midget while posing with Deathtrap.

An invisible hand grabbed her around the waist and heaved her out of the way as a rocket flew by. "_Be more careful._"

"Oops, sorry Zero, thanks for the save." Gaige retreated with Deathtrap to Salvador's position at the end of the ship. The flying midget weaved through the air above, dodging Salvador's bullets and curses.

"Deathtrap, exterminate!" The robot's head followed the midget for a bit and then fired a continuous beam of energy at it, breaking the midget's shield and the jetpack. "Bewmmmmm!" screamed the midget as he went down in flames. The flailing midget crashed into the ship's hull and exploded.

"Woah, is that Deathtrap?" asked Salvador at the sight of the robot.

"Told ya Deathtrap's real," teased Gaige. "Can you believe I got third place for this? Third place! I built a robot that can turn human beings into jelly with the push of a button and that what's-his-face gives me-" Gaige took a deep breath. "THIRD PLACE! In the planet-wide science fair. At least around here people appreciate my talents."

"What? That's messed up," said Salvador, still not sure what a science fair was. Some kind of competition to make jelly?

"You killed Bewm! You're going down boom!" screamed Boom from behind cover. He tossed several more grenades out at the vault hunters. When those were phaselocked as well by Maya, the bandit let out a frustrated shout and aimed the rocket launcher at his own feet.

Axton and Maya watched in disbelief as Boom ran out from behind cover and jumped into the air, firing the rocket launcher as he did so. The explosion propelled Boom over the turret faster than it could turn and also fast enough to narrowly avoid being trapped by Maya's phaselock. The bandit plunged towards Gaige with launcher aimed at her and two live grenades clutched in his other hand. "Time to blow, bitch!"

Several throwing knives flew out of nowhere and hit Boom mid-air, causing the bandit to explode in a shower of guts. "_Be more careful. Seriously._"

"Okay that one wasn't my fault," protested Gaige and gestured at the space high above her where Boom just was. "Did you see that? He friggin ROCKET JUMPED. I thought that was only possible in video games!"

"ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?" demanded Krieg as he approached them, juggling three buzzsaw axes plus his own.*

"Watch out minions! Here comes more!" Claptrap pointed at the ravine; more than twenty bandits were heading their way.

"I got this," called Axton, and quickly climbed up the ship's turret. The bandits turned to run away but it was too late, Axton had already spun the big guns around to face them. "That's right, start runnin'!"

The twin cannons fired simultaneously, blasting the retreating bandits to bits. "Boom-Shaka-Laka!" Axton began laughing uncontrollably.

"He's really gone loco," said Salvador. "Yo Axton! Get off the turret, let's go."

Maya waved her left arm at Axton and put him into a phaselock bubble. "Take a deep breath Axton."

"Phew. okay okay, I'm good, you can put me down now." Axton hopped down from the turret, and joined the others.

Gaige was now sitting on Deathtrap's right shoulder, and looked down on the others with a supremely smug look on her face. Everyone tried to avoid her haughty gaze as they crossed the ravine and came within sight of Captain Flynt's ship.

It was a large freighter with a bow shaped like a dragon's head. Occasionally the head shot out jets of flame that lit up the iceberg the ship was stuck to and also the sprawling makeshift town connecting the ship to the beach.

"I don't think that ships going anywhere anytime soon," said Maya, and looked to the gunzerker beside her for support.

"Heh, Butt Stallion," blurted out Salvador and continued chuckling.

Maya gave him a weird look, "Uh, what?"

"Butt Stallion! Come on Maya, don't tell me you don't find that funny?" Salvador grinned at her.

"Again. What?"

"Jack's a huge pendejo, but you can't deny Butt Stallion-"

"Wait a minute," said Axton from in front of the two, and turned to stare wide-eyed at Salvador. "Are you still listening to that jerkbag talk?"

The grin slowly faded from Salvador's face. "What? You mean I can turn this crap off?"

"If we were forced to listen to him talk for the rest of this journey, I would've blown my brains out already," said Axton, half serious.

Maya helped Salvador navigate his ECHO communicator's web of menus and turn Jack's broadcasts off. A relaxed smile crawled across Salvador's face. "Ahhhh. Adios, pendejo."

"Did he say anything useful?" asked Sir Hammerlock.

Salvador shook his head.

"Butt Stallion?" repeated Maya, curious what it was all about.

"Oh that, yeah, he has a diamond pony now, its name is Butt Stallion."

"Ah yes, the exotic species _Equus ferus bling,_" Sir Hammerlock nodded thoughtfully. "A magnificent creature, I had the pleasure of riding one last time I was on Wealthicus-2."

Sir Hammerlock entertained them with stories from his various adventures on other planets as they approached the ship. The group had settled into a pattern by now: Zero with his sniper and Axton with his turret made sure the bandits couldn't leave cover while Maya picked the bandits off with her power. The group casually strolled through the town as the leftover bandits wised up and ran back to their ship.

Gaige jumped off Deathtrap and took a shield from one of the dead bandits. "Deathtrap wants an upgrade? Deathtrap gets an upgrade," she said affectionately, and took from her tool belt her hammer and a nail. It was a temporary fix, and Gaige resolved to do some serious upgrading once they got to Sanctuary. She nailed the shield to the robot's back and climbed back on.

They reached the freighter without trouble and were just about to begin climbing the zigzagging staircase erected against the hull when Claptrap complained, "Rrrrragh! Stairs! I can't climb stairs! Let's find another way up!" Claptrap turned his back to the stairs and began rolling away.

Gaige patted Deathtrap's shoulder; the robot reached out with its clawlike right hand and grabbed Claptrap by the head. Deathtrap lifted the helpless robot into the air and began floating up the stairs.

The lack of resistance was becoming eerie, and the vault hunters hurried to the top of the freighter, where they were reassured by the sight of Captain Flynt on his throne, surrounded by goons. It seemed there had been an attempted mutiny, evidenced by the bodies all over the deck and the injured bandits around Captain Flynt.

"A bunch of cowards, every one of them!" dismissed Captain Flynt as he got up. "I'll show you slaglicks how it's done!" He smashed a button beside the throne and fire exploded out of the multiple exhaust ports on the deck. The air was filled with the screams of the injured mutineers as the unlucky ones still alive burned to death.

The vault hunters shielded themselves as the heat wave rolled past them, and soon they found it painful to breathe.

"What's wrong vault hunters? Can't handle the heat?" mocked Captain Flynt, as he slowly waddled towards them in his fireproof suit.

"He's too fat to phaselock!" Maya let the others know, as she tried to spot Captain Flynt amongst the blinding pillars of fire.

"There's nowhere to throw down my turret." Axton jumped back away from the flaming deck. "We have to retreat, get him off the ship somehow." He motioned for them to retreat down the stairs.

Gaige hummed casually as she slid off Deathtrap. "It's cool everybody. _I'm_ here." She snapped her fingers. "Rock and roll, Deathtrap."

Deathtrap drifted towards the wall of fire, with Claptrap still in hand. Claptrap waved its twig-like arms in the air frantically as the two robots approached the flames.

"No, not the fire! Anything but the fire again!"

Gaige smiled cruelly as the two robots vanished into the inferno, leaving them with just the screams of Claptrap. She could totally see why Captain Flynt wanted his torture doll back.

"Die, you damn robot!" shouted Captain Flynt from somewhere past the fire, but the vault hunters still couldn't see him and were left listening to Claptrap's screams, punctuated by the occasional thunk of metal hitting flesh.

The wall of fire was shut off and the vault hunters now saw the pulpy remains of Captain Flynt on the deck, and Deathtrap over by the throne, bludgeoning to death the remaining bandits with a blood covered Claptrap.

The few surviving bandits jumped overboard as the vault hunters ran across the deck to the throne.

"I need to build you an extra arm JUST for high-fives!" declared Gaige as she jumped up to hug Deathtrap. Salvador managed to pull her back at the last second so that only her robotic hand hit Deathtrap, saving her from burning herself on Deathtrap's red hot skin.

"I say MECHRO, you say MANCER," said Gaige as she turned to the other vault hunters with a proud look on her face. "MECHRO! ...You guys-"

"Mancer!" said Axton begrudgingly.

"Hey minion number six! You mind putting me down? I'm starting to feel dizzy from all this hovering."

Deathtrap let go of Claptrap, and the latter fell with a thunk onto the deck, leaving a bloody imprint of itself on the floor.

"Great! Now let's get on my boat." Claptrap motioned to the tugboat hanging over the side of the freighter. "Oh boy, we've got a fifteen hour trip ahead of us. This is going to be so much fun!"

The vault hunters shuddered at the idea. Sir Hammerlock's legs gave away and he collapsed onto Flynt's throne. "If only the damned fast travel station in town was still working. This is bloody awful."

"Oh there's a fast travel station in town?" said Gaige innocently. "I could fix it, yeah I could totally fix it, let's go back to Liar's Berg."

Before they left, the vault hunters decided to loot the ship. They gave Gaige the first good assault rifle they found as a reward for beating Captain Flynt, and Gaige waited on the deck patiently while the rest dug further into the abandoned ship.

She was leaning on the deck guard rail, staring out at the dark and empty ocean when Axton walked up from behind, surprising her.

"Hey," said Axton and leaned on the railing to her right, though he was a bit too tall for it to be comfortable.

"Hey," replied Gaige.

They were quiet for a moment, both listening to the ceaseless wind and the ocean waves.

Axton scratched his head as he searched for the right words. "Look, I'm sorry about earlier. I shouldn't have said those things and made you cry." The last few words were barely audible to himself.

"Wait, you thought I was crying?" Gaige pushed herself away from the railing and gave Axton a quizzical look.

"Huh? Weren't you?" asked Axton, embarassed.

The mischievous grin on Gaige's face turned into a wide smile. "Yeah, but those were TEARS OF JOY! You know how many days off from school we had on Eden-5? None!" boasted the girl animatedly.

Axton shook his head; he'd been duped. He laughed out loud as Gaige continued her indignant speech.

"Nine hours? I slept for nine hours? Holy crap I can't remember ever sleeping that long, EVER!" She happily leaned against the guard rail again. "Sleeping in and not going to school is definitely the best part about being a vault hunter."

Axton stared ruefully out into the darkness as he thought of what the best part about it was for him. Fame and fortune of course. But he didn't say it out loud.

"…I do miss dad and mom though, and the few friends I had I guess."

Axton looked over at Gaige.

She smiled reassuringly back at him. "But I know they're all cheering for me." She hopped back from the guard rail and pumped her metal fist in the air. "No way I'm gonna let them down, that 'handsome' jerkwad doesn't stand a chance!"

* * *

Jack rolled his eyes and continued watching the silent melodrama on the screen in front of him. "Oh my god, what's with all the cheese? It's so thick I could cut it." He blew a raspberry and laughed.

As the girl on screen pumped her fist in the air, Jack lip-synced her mockingly. "I'm a dumb little girl," he said in his best impression of a girly voice. "I'm too stupid to realize Jack's the best, I should just slit my wrist and die."

Jack snapped his fingers, summoning Blake. "Blake! I want all her family and friends dead. Scratch that, everyone in her community back on Eden-5. Call it a toxic gas leak or something."

"As you wish," said Blake, and added a name to the bottom of a long, imaginary list of uncrossed out names. Blake allowed himself a little smile; give a man a planet, and he'll try to take the whole universe. He exited the room, leaving Jack staring at the holoscreen. Blake chuckled as he walked away.

*ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?

**PS. What do you guys think about some OC NPCs and villains? I've got some planned but it'd be way in the future. **


	7. Chapter 7: Once upon a time

**Author's Note: Hi all, I know I said I wouldn't be posting for a while, but I didn't want to leave the story with a sad ending for now, so here's a little something extra! **

**Also, some reviewers have asked some questions I couldn't reply to since they aren't members so I'd like to answer them here and clarify some stuff:**

**1. Legendary and unique weapons: they might appear, there are a few I definitely want to work in and already have plans to do so towards the end of the story, but overall this story won't focus too much on the weapons.**

**2. Skills: I try to work in the skills that are pertinent, so no guarantee that all of them are going to show up, the vault hunters will get stronger as the story progresses but I'm not sticking 100% to the skill trees of the game.**

**3. DLC: I'm undecided as of yet if I will do DLC content, I'll just have to see after I finish the main story. If I do though, you can count on a moon base story arc.**

**4. GOTY edition: I already have it but thanks for the offer :) **

**Since no one replied about OC content I'm gonna assume you guys are cool if I bring some original NPC's and villains in later down the line, don't worry though the heroes are gonna just be the main six still. As always, enjoy and leave a review, thanks! **

"_And they lived happily ever after._"

Maya reread the last sentence and closed the book. She sat quietly in the recliner, thinking about the story and how it ended. "What a bad book," she said to the empty room, as Gaige walked in.

"I fixed the- woah, did you finish the whole book already?"

Maya glanced down at the dictionary sized book in her lap. "Yeah, most of it was just filler though, and the ending was kind of a letdown. I mean you can see it coming halfway through the book."

"Aw, that sucks, anyways I fixed the fast travel station. Let's go!"

Maya put the book down on the recliner's arm and followed the skipping Gaige out of Sir Hammerlock's house and into the night. They reached the center of the barely-lit town where the fast travel station was, and joined the rest of the crowd standing around the activated machine. The thick rod with an antenna on top hummed ominously as the holographic globe of Pandora it was projecting flickered and shifted randomly.

"Uh, you sure you fixed it Gaige?" asked Salvador.

"_Looks shady as hell / How do we know that it works? / Can we test it first?"_

"Come on guys," said Gaige with a hurt look on her face. "I've been working on it for the last six hours, it definitely works."

"There's no harm in testing it first," said Axton. "Let's make it teleport something to itself."

They lured a bullymong from the outskirts of town to the station, and Gaige activated the tower remotely using her ECHO communicator, de-digistructing the surprised bullymong into particles. Everyone held their breath as the digistruct particles flowed into the short tower and flowed back out. What returned was not a bullymong.

"Augh!" exclaimed everyone except Krieg, who shouted instead, "Another! I want a different passenger for this poop train."

Claptrap was speechless for once.

"Dear lord," cried Sir Hammerlock with eyes shut, not daring to look at the thing any longer. "For the love of all that is holy someone please put it out of its misery!"

Axton pulled out a grenade. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," he said while sobbing.

Maya grabbed his arm. "Wait, you toss that grenade and we'll all get splattered in that, thing. Gaige!"

But Gaige was busy retching into the snow behind them. Maya did the only thing she could and phaselocked the thing until Gaige calmed down enough to summon Deathtrap. Deathtrap took it away to be buried in the cemetery as the vault hunters headed back to the house to recover.

Sitting in the living room, no one dared speak and bring to mind the horror of what just occurred. Axton figured now was the perfect time to use the techniques learned in Dahl's trauma relief seminar. "Everyone, let's just sleep it off."

"I'm sorry guys," said Gaige still lying on her side on the floor. "I was overconfident."

"It's okay Gaige, we all make mistakes," said Maya and helped the girl to her feet. "Do you have any idea what went wrong?"

"Well, I might've put the hecker reintegrator in backwards. The way the digistruct particles were acting I'm pretty sure that's the problem."

"Can you fix it?" asked Maya.

Gaige nodded her head. Maya reached out and gave her a comforting hug. "You already took out Captain Flynt today, let's save this for tomorrow."

"It was still a better fate than a fifteen hour boat ride with Claptrap I imagine," commented Sir Hammerlock from his recliner, trying to cheer up Gaige.

Maya didn't dare bring up the idea of dinner. And after seeing what they saw, she doubted any of them could sleep anytime soon. A happy idea came to her and she went over to the bookshelf, secretly elated.

She spotted a familiar book on the shelf: "_Arrogance and Bias, by Bane Austin._" She hesitated, but it was the only work of fiction on the shelf, so she pulled it out and made a spot for herself on the couch between Axton and Zero.

"I know, why don't I read to you guys?" she asked, timid but hopefully.

Sir Hammerlock and Zero applauded it as a wonderful idea while the rest agreed halfheartedly.

Maya began narrating with a voice wavering from eagerness; she'd never had the chance to read to others before, every time she tried with the monks back in the monastery they'd conveniently become possessed by the almighty spirit and fall to the floor in fits of ecstasy. As a child, she'd always wondered why their god was so rude. She realized eventually the monks faked possession because it was the only excuse to get away from her, and because they were assholes. Then she stopped trying to read to the monks.

She cleared her throat and restarted with a firmer voice. "_It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a dude or dudette in possession of a gigantic wad of credits must be in want of a gun…"_

The happiness leaked out through her voice, and soon the other vault hunters were sharing her sentiment and actively enjoying the book.

"Hey hey, read that part again Maya," insisted Salvador. "Tell me again what Marcy did to the bandit that stole her gun, cuz I'm gonna start doing that to bandits."

Maya obliged and reread the passage for him. In the middle of the passage, she put the book down and rubbed her eyes.

"You okay?" asked Axton.

"Sorry Maya," said Salvador, fidgeting. "You don't have to reread the passage, I figured it out mostly anyways."

"No, it's not that," said Maya and gave a half sob, half laugh. "I just can't remember the last time I was so happy reading a book."

"Neither can I," admitted Gaige earnestly. "I think you just made reading awesome again!"

"It is indeed very awesome," said Sir Hammerlock. "And this particular story is so awesome I bought two copies." He lifted the dictionary sized book from the arm of his recliner. "The print in this one is much larger, in case I break my glasses again."

Everyone settled down as Maya resumed reading the book out loud, and the vault hunters were finally able to forget their troubles on Pandora for a while.


	8. Chapter 8: East of Eden-5

"Hey Gaige."

"Yeah Axton?"

"You mind me asking why you're on Pandora? I'm just curious."

"Oh, uh, Deathtrap accidentally killed Marcie, the girl who won the science fair. She totally stole my robot designs though!"

"Uh huh."

* * *

It was a sunny day unfit for a funeral. The sun beat down on the meadow and made all the mourners miserable, a feat the large funeral had failed to achieve. The few over prepared attendees in the crowd of black hid under their umbrellas while the rest suffered silently in their seats as the student speaker on stage finished his eulogy. Up on stage and by the podium, the portrait of a high school girl sat on an empty chair next to an equally empty coffin and a smiling cardboard cutout of Handsome Jack.

The loudspeaker attached to the cutout repeated its jingle again in Jack's booming voice, "Buy Hyperion firearms, they keep you alive longer." The words had long lost meaning to the crowd, who'd heard it what seemed like hundreds of times already. Its regular, calm interruption now only served to heighten the meditative atmosphere, bringing close to consciousness the entranced minds of the vast audience.

The real funeral had been held days ago, but when the president of an intergalactic corporation pays for a community sized funeral, no one was going to protest and miss out on the large, and tasty, banquet that would surely follow. The suburbanites bided their time with a stoic resolve; soon they would be delivered from this purgatory and warmly welcomed into food heaven. Some of the weaker willed mourners had already reached nirvana though, and drooled with blank smiles on their faces as they sat limp in their fold out chairs.

"Uh, we all miss Marcie so much," said the teenage boy on stage, stalling for time as he searched for some more nice things to say. "She was so kind," he added. "She was so nice to everyone, and uh, we're all going to miss Marcie so much."

The huge crowd half-clapped on cue as the next and last of Marcie's hundreds of Facenovel friends, a girl dressed like she was about to walk a runway, mounted the podium. "Sniff sniff, oh my god, sniff, I can't believe Marcie's gone." She sniffed several more times to emphasize how emotionally devastated she was pretending to feel. "I think, sniff, I speak for-"

"Buy Hyperion firearms, they keep you alive longer."

Towards the back of the audience, a teenager in a gasmask rolled his eyes. Cable adjusted his sweaty mask and took off the hood of his black hoodie, revealing disheveled blonde hair and the earphones he was wearing. The mask limited his vision so he couldn't see the disapproving look the normally dressed students to his left and right were giving him. He wouldn't have cared even if he noticed though; he was used to it.

He turned up the volume on his ECHO communicator to drown out the sniffling girl as he listened to Gaige's latest ECHO log.

"_Hello my faithful subscribers! Blagh, too cheerful, okay let me try that again. What up, subbies? No no no too casual, argh I'll figure it out later, anyways…_"

Cable laughed every now and then as he listened to his friend talk about her fight against Boom Bewm and Captain Flynt, and how she accidentally put a Hecker circuit reintegrator backwards into a fast travel network station, creating a bullymong abomination.

"What is wrong with you," whispered the girl on Cable's right.

Cable turned to face Abri. So far, he'd resisted the urge to tie her curly brown hair into a knot while she wasn't looking, but now he was reconsidering it. "Oh come off it, like anyone's actually sad, we're all here for the food and you know it."

She folded her arms and returned her attention to the funeral. "Just my luck to be stuck next to you," she muttered. "Touch my hair and you'll be eating your teeth instead, loser."

Cable pretended he'd stretched his arms to yawn and returned his hands to his lap. He knew she wasn't bluffing; he was in the same gym class as her. He personally believed she was a gorilla in disguise, but his imagination was at a loss regarding how the gorilla squeezed into such a slender skin suit. He lightly slapped his head to drive away the thoughts that followed, damn puberty.

"Oh my god, please just stop drawing attention to yourself, this is so embarrassing." Abri had covered her face with her hands.

"If you want to cover your face you can borrow my spare gasmask," suggested Cable mockingly.

"Why are you still wearing that thing?" retorted Abri. "It's weird enough you wear it in school, no one knows what you look like you know."

"Good."

"They call you Gassy."

"Okay." He wondered if she called him that too behind his back.

"Why don't you just take it off?"

"Because I'm ugly," said Cable plainly.

Abri rolled her eyes. "Just get plastic surgery then, like a normal person."

"I don't want to be a normal person."

"Right, sorry, I forgot you're an analist like Gaige."

"Anarchist," said Cable, annoyed because he knew she misspoke on purpose. "I'm not telling you how to live your life so-"

Abri ignored him.

"Besides," he continued, ignoring her ignoring him. "At least we're doing something against these corporate jackholes. You wouldn't believe half the shit they've been doing."

Abri was listening again. Encouraged, and armed with the knowledge from Gaige's ECHO log, Cable said, "Take Handsome Jack for example, he-"

But a scream from behind them interrupted Cable. Everyone turned to see what had broken the monotony.

One of the new police robots, based off of Marcie's science fair winning design, hovered over the shredded remains of a guest that'd tried to leave. Satisfied, it returned to the circle of robots that guarded the funeral.

"That's a little extreme," said Cable. "Sure, you shouldn't leave in the middle of a funeral but jeeze did they really have to kill him?" He wished Gaige was here to see this excessive use of police force. The video he was recording for her'll have to do instead.

A call for attention back at the podium made everyone spin around. The hologram of a gaunt, balding man stood there waiting to address them.

"Hello, community number forty five of Eden-5, I am Mr. Blake," said the hologram. "Unfortunately, I have some very bad news. You're all going to die, have a nice day."

The hologram terminated, leaving the crowd stunned.

"Shit," said Cable and grabbed his backpack from under his seat. The crowd around him began stampeding, trapping him and pushing him in random directions. The circle of robots fired toxic gas grenades over the crowd and soon everyone sank to their knees coughing before collapsing for good.

Cable pretended to fall too as he breathed short, panicked breathes through his gasmask. He lay still and tried to blend in amongst the dying crowd. Look at me mom, he thought sardonically, I'm finally trying to blend in.

The death gasps of a girl to his right caught his attention amongst the silent dead. He crawled past a couple of bodies and saw Abri sprawled on the grass, struggling to breathe between rattling coughs.

She really is a gorilla, thought Cable as he took his spare gas mask out of his backpack; everyone else around them was already dead yet she was still half-conscious, and fighting weakly against his attempt to put the mask on her face.

"I'm trying to save your life," hissed Cable and succeeded in putting the mask over her face. She finally calmed down and drifted into unconscious sleep.

"Hey hey, don't die on me here!" Cable urgently rummaged through his backpack, trying to find a health vial. He pulled one out and jabbed the needle into Abri's arm. The red contents of the glass tube drained into Abri and the girl sat up with a start as the nanomachines went to work inside her, neutralizing the toxins and repairing her lungs.

"Ow," said Abri, her voice muffled by the mask. She pulled the vial out and let it fall to the ground.

"You okay?" Cable zipped up his backpack and put it on. "You're lucky I carry my survival pack everywhere." He puffed out his chest and tried to sound macho.

Abri pushed herself away from him with her hands and feet, causing Cable's ego and torso to deflate.

"Behind you idiot," she shouted through the mask.

Cable noticed now the police-bot hovering behind him. His suddenly shaking legs wouldn't let him turn to face it, so he squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the end.

A sudden gunshot followed by an explosion made Cable jump. He turned and saw the police bot was now just burning wreckage. A middle-aged man in a lab coat and gas mask walked around the debris. The large shotgun he was wielding looked very out of place in his hands.

"That was close," the man said with a laugh as he blew two more approaching robots out of the air. "You alright kids?"

"H-hello, Gaige's dad," said Cable awkwardly. "Thanks for saving us."

Recognition flashed in the scientist's eyes. "Oh! You're that boy who got rejected by my daughter, hello, how've you been?"

Abri exchanged her high heels for a dead boy's shoes and stood up. Cable could tell she was laughing under the gasmask all the while.

Gaige's dad waved for the two teenagers to follow him. "Come on, let's get out of here."

"What are you doing here?" asked Cable as he and Abri followed the man towards the edge of the meadow.

"Well I've been listening to my daughter's ECHO log," explained Gaige's dad. "So I figured this funeral would just be a setup." He took two shield modules out of his lab coat and handed them to Cable and Abri. "Shame I couldn't save more people."

"Yeah," agreed Cable. Gaige's father sure didn't sound that upset about it though, he actually sounded rather happy.

"Good thing Marcie did such a poor job copying my daughter's robot," said Gaige's dad cheerfully as he easily sidestepped the claw swipe of a policebot. He bashed in the robot's head with the butt of his shotgun. "Otherwise we'd have been in big trouble."

"Where are you taking us?" asked Abri.

"I've been wanting to study Eridium for a while, and my little girl's also on Pandora" said Gaige's dad as he blasted a police bot out of their way. "My wife and I are planning a vacation there, you and your boyfriend want to come along?"

"HE IS NOT MY BOYFRIEND!"

"But I just saved your life," complained Cable jokingly. "You owe me."

Abri turned around and punched him in the gut. Cable crumpled to the ground crying; she wasn't a gorilla, she had the strength of at least five gorillas.

"Awww," cooed Gaige's dad. He paused to admire the two teenagers. "You two remind me of when I first met Gaige's mom."

"Take me to Pandora," said Abri menacingly. Gaige was going to pay for ruining her life.

* * *

"Sir, we have a situation," said the secretary nervously, and kept her eyes fixed on Blake's desk inside the office.

Blake leaned his arms on the desk and asked, "What's the matter?"

"Two teenagers escaped from the funeral and it appears the vault hunter's parents are not among the deceased."

"Okay."

"Sir?"

"Okay."

The secretary decided to change the subject. "Sir, what about the rest of the people on um-" she tried to think of a way to politically correctly phrase the term: list of people Handsome Jack wants dead.

"The list of people Handsome Jack wants dead?" asked Blake.

The secretary nodded her head meekly.

"Kill the ones that are easy, leave the hard ones alone."

"But sir-"

"Kill the ones that are easy," repeated Blake, saying the words slowly this time. "Leave the hard ones alone."

The secretary nodded her head again.

Blake smiled for the nervous secretary. This was the problem with new employees; they were far too afraid of their bosses, and treated them like some kind of revered monster. What was there to be terrified of? It's just business.

"It really doesn't matter," assured Blake. "Our president is far too busy with Pandora, and I dislike killing without profit, we are a corporation miss, not a charitable assassin's guild."

"So the situation on Eden-5?" asked the secretary timidly.

"We now own some of the most expensive real estate in the galaxy. The profit from the sales will be split between us and their police force. If it proves profitable enough, we will repeat the process," nonchalantly explained Blake, the unemotional expression on his face not changing once. "Is there anything else you'd like to know?"

"No, thank you." The secretary tried her best not to shake as she bowed and quickly walked out of the room. Blake's serene eyes haunted her, and once she was safely out of their sight in the hallway, she tried to outrun the memory of them. What a monster.


	9. Chapter 9: Sanctuary at last

**Author's Note: Thanks for the reviews everyone who has reviewed so far! I worked pretty hard on this chapter and wow it took a lot outta me, I need a break phew! I'm pretty tired so I don't think I caught all the errors in the chapter and whatnot so if you read it now and see any errors or awkward paragraphs let me know! Thanks, read and review and I hope you like it!**

"_Good morning Pandora! This is Hunter Hellquist, of Hyperion Truth Broadcasting. A train carrying aid and puppies to the besieged town of Liar's Berg was blown up yesterday, video evidence indicate it was the work of six vault hunters. Our benevolent leader, Handsome Jack, has set a bounty of six million credits on-"_

"Turn that crap off Davis, it's giving me a headache," complained the soldier opposite the one listening to the broadcast.

"Fine fine," said Davis and turned off the radio on the table beside him. Now with nothing to occupy his mind, he shifted restlessly in his chair and turned to stare out the window of Pierce's station. The one-story building was empty except for the two bored soldiers and a fast travel network station.

The hums and clicks of the fast travel network station preparing to receive traffic startled the two soldiers out of their chairs. They aimed their guns at the metal rod, and waited for the visitor to materialize.

Digistruct particles flowed out of the rod and formed into a CL4P-TP unit. The two soldiers slowly approached the short robot.

"D-don't move!" ordered Davis. He couldn't believe what he was seeing; Hyperion had shut down all of their CL4P-TP units, not to mention the cull after the failed Robolution, how did one escape the genocide? Davis tried not to shake as flashbacks of the Claptrap uprising filled his mind.

The cheery robot waved at the two soldiers and introduced itself. "Greetings! I-"

The two soldiers fired, causing the robot to retract its limbs into its hull like a turtle.

Davis called for help over the ECHOnet. "We have a situation. A claptrap unit just teleported in-" Davis was interrupted by the network station firing up again. "We have more incoming unknowns, requesting back up ASAP."

A man in a brown army uniform dropped to the ground next to the robot. The man raised his hands in the air at the sight of the two soldiers.

"Don't shoot, we come in peace," said Axton calmly. He looked from one soldier to the other. Both were clad in ragged army gear. He'd fought Atlas Corporation's goons enough times to know they were Crimson Lance just from the faded red tint of their boots and helmets. Conversely, it seemed they recognized his Dahl standard issue uniform.

"Dahl scum," hissed the soldier on Axton's right as three more soldiers entered the building and joined the firing squad.

"I'm not here as Dahl, I'm here as a vault hunter," explained Axton. He suppressed the urge to fire back an insult. His well-honed instinct screamed for him to pull out his turret; ten years with Dahl had bred the rivalry with other corporations into his blood.

The rest of the vault hunters appeared one after the other and soon they all stood with hands raised in the air as the soldier in charge whispered into his ECHO communicator before them.

"I'll murder your food and eat your family!" screamed Krieg, but Maya restrained the psycho with a phaselock bubble.

The soldiers backed away in surprise but kept their guns pointed at the vault hunters and Sir Hammerlock.

"This doesn't look good, does it?" commented Maya. Noticing how afraid the soldiers seemed to be of them, and especially her.

The Angel reappeared on the vault hunters' HUD and said, "Tell them that you're with Angel, and that Roland will know what it means."

Axton cleared his throat and repeated the Angel's words. The vault hunters relaxed when the soldiers let them go a few seconds later.

"The boss wants to meet you guys, follow us," said the Crimson Lance commander, and motioned for the vault hunters to follow him. "Oh, and welcome to Sanctuary."

The group stepped outside of Pierce's station and into the sunny streets of Sanctuary. Maya shielded her eyes with her hands as she studied the makeshift city. Trash covered the streets and the buildings seemed to be made of it, what little cleanliness there was existed only on the shiny new guns carried by the few residents they passed. She was unpleasantly reminded of the six million credit bounty on their heads by a wanted poster stuck to the sidewalk. Now she was glad the soldiers were escorting them.

"Well then, it appears this is where we part, vault hunters," said Sir Hammerlock sadly. He stepped back and saluted them. "I couldn't have reached Sanctuary without your help." He pointed towards the flashing neon sign of a bar called Moxxi's. "Stop by sometimes and I'll buy a round of drinks or two for everyone, I wish you good hunting friends, farewell." The vault hunters wished Sir Hammerlock good luck with his almanac and followed their guide away.

They soon reached a two story building in what looked to be the center of the city. From all of the posters and soldiers hanging around, the vault hunters gathered that this was the headquarters for the resistance group known as the Crimson Raiders.

The guards at the door let them through and the vault hunters walked into the refreshingly cool room by themselves. Inside, they were greeted by the sight of a short haired woman talking into her ECHO device.

"As I've said, Roland, now that Jack has the Vault Key, it is only a matter of time until he awakens the warrior." She paced the room as she continued talking and ignoring the vault hunters. "Also, I require a new ventilator - this lab smells of bacon. Bacon is for sycophants, and products of incest."

"I LOVE BACON!" shouted Krieg and snorted the air in deeply.

The woman finally noticed them. She froze and then her face started twitching as she tried to communicate with them, starting with a series of grunts before progressing finally to speech. "Aa-a-are you the new vault hunters? Go upstairs." She spun around and ran away as the vault hunters went to the staircase on their left.

"Stairs?" whined Claptrap, "I can't cl-"

Salvador picked up the robot and with a shout, tossed it all the way up the staircase.

"Thanks, minion number three."

"What is that THING doing here?" the panicked shout reached the vault hunters from the room above them.

Claptrap rolled out of view while yelling. "Rolank! Buddy! I have returned! Wow, you're crying! You must've really missed me!"

The vault hunters hurried up the stairs to find Claptrap annoying a beret wearing soldier curled in a corner in the fetal position. Upon noticing the vault hunters the man jumped to his feet and stood straight as an arrow. "Uh, sorry you had to see that, welcome to the Crimson Raiders. I'm Roland."

"You changed your name?" inquired Claptrap. "You should go back to Rolank, I think it's a much better name and…"

"Sorry about the robot, Angel said to bring it along," said Axton and shook Roland's hand.

"It's okay soldier, it's the price we're paying for six badass vault hunters." Roland grinned and shook his head. "You guys came right when we needed you. It's almost too good to be true."

"What do you need us for?" Maya looked over from the wanted poster of Roland on the wall. The vault hunters spread out around the holodeck in the center of the room while Roland pointed at various locations on it.

"We are here," He pointed at the dot labeled Sanctuary on the eastern continent, then at another dot north of it. "I've got reasons to believe a train will be passing through here three days from now, and on that train is the vault key."

"And we're going to steal it, right?" asked Gaige, brimming with enthusiasm.

"Yes," said Roland with a nod. "I've a contact in the area, she'll provide you with the necessary explosives for the job."

"Yeah but when do we get to kill Jack?" Salvador punched his hand. "That pendejo killed my village. I'm gonna pummel him to dust!"

"Jack's up on his moonbase, how're you gonna pummel him?" Axton asked from the balcony. He looked up at the sky and waved for Handsome Jack.

"We have some plans," assured Roland. "But right now what's important is getting that vault key. Without it, he can't summon the warrior. And without the warrior, Jack can't win."

A blast of energy on the balcony interrupted the meeting, and a woman with tattoos like Maya's but hair like fire blinked into existence next to the frightened Axton.

"Holy crap," gasped Axton, with hands shielding his face. "Holy crap."

"Sorry," said the woman casually and turned to greet everyone else. "sup."

"You're a siren," said Maya excitedly. "I'm-"

"Lily!" shouted Claptrap as he appeared from behind Salvador. "You came running to see me? I knew you loved me baby!"

"Augh!" The woman jumped like she'd just seen a ghost. "Roland! What is that THING doing here?"

"What are YOU doing here Lillith?" demanded Roland. "You're going to blow your cover, what if-"

"Too late," Lillith snapped her fingers. "I've been chased by assassins all morning, I had to get out of Frostburn Canyon. We need to talk. Now."

Roland looked apologetically at the other vault hunters. "Sorry about this, I'll brief you guys later, for now just relax, I'll have someone show you to your living quarters." Roland called a grunt over from downstairs.

The soldier led them across the plaza in front of the headquarters to a three story apartment complex turned barrack and gave them keys to two rooms on the second floor. They opened the door to one and stepped inside, discovering a surprisingly clean room with a pair of comfy looking beds.

"Oh bed, how I've missed you," said Gaige as she leaped onto one of the mattresses.

Salvador cannonballed into the second bed in the room, smearing it with dirt from his clothe. "Dibs!"

Gaige got back up with a sigh and followed Maya to the second room.

"Good job Salvador," said Axton, as he settled down onto the free bed. "You two mind if we take the beds tonight?" Axton waited for Krieg and Zero to answer, but when he sat back up he realized the two were gone. "That takes care of that." He sank back down into the bed for a quick nap.

"Minions!"

Axton rolled off the bed and hid behind it as the robot rolled into the room.

"Minions, I have a job for you," declared Claptrap proudly. "Think of all the experience points you can earn! You're welcome minions."

Salvador got up and rushed past Claptrap. "Uh, I need to buy new guns. Later."

"Med-Hypos," recalled Axton conveniently. "I need to buy some Med-Hypos, bye." He scrambled out of the room and bumped into Maya and Gaige in the hallway.

"Hey, where are you guys going?" asked Claptrap.

"Uh, parts, yeah I need parts for Deathtrap!" Gaige nodded and ran off after Axton.

For a moment, Claptrap and Maya stood staring at each other. "Sorry Claptrap," said Maya guiltily. "But um, I think Gaige might need my help."

"It's okay minion number one, I'll just get Rolank and Lily to do it!" The cheerful robot hummed as he rolled past Maya before stopping at the stairs. "Um, can you help me down minion? The guy who helped me up isn't here anymore."

"Sure."

* * *

"You have anything shootier?" Salvador handed the gun back to the merchant behind the counter.

"Of course, my friend, and the name's Marcus," Marcus smiled and picked another gun out of the crate behind him. "Here, this one is fifty percent shootier, said so on the packaging."

Salvador weighed the large rifle in his hands. "hmmm, nah, find me something even more-"

Marcus slammed his fists onto the counter, toppling the stack of banknotes on it. "Look, friend," said Marcus in a barely controlled voice. "We've gone through…thirty guns. Just buy something, eh?"

"Ohoho, I want that." Salvador pointed at one of the guns on the rack behind Marcus. It was a big red machine gun with sharp teeth painted on the barrel.

"What, that? That's the chea- I mean, you have fine taste señor. That's manufactured by Bandit, a local brand, it's an indie vintage limited edition machine gun, very expensive."

"Uh, I've got one thousand credits." Salvador pulled some crumpled up bills out of his jean pockets and put them on the counter.

"Is that all you have?" asked Marcus through his frozen smile.

"Yeah."

"A pleasure doing business with you." Marcus handed the gun to Salvador.

"Heh heh, awesome." Salvador walked over to the shooting range to test his new gun.

* * *

"Look Dr. Zed," said Axton while holding a bloody saw in his left hand.

"Here, hold this," Dr. Zed shoved a hammer stained with blood into Axton's free right hand. The patient on the operating table before them struggled weakly against his restraints while Dr. Zed picked another knife from his toolbox on the floor.

"Why, why don't you just use a Med-Hypo on the poor guy?" Axton looked away from the nauseating mess in front of him.

"A Med-Hypo?" asked Dr. Zed, speaking through his medical mask. "Are you crazy boy? How am I supposed to learn anything if I don't operate?"

"Who operates when they have Med-Hypos? Doctors haven't performed surgery since the twenty first century, are you even a real doctor?"

Dr. Zed turned back to the patient and mumbled something. "Ah, now tell me if this hurts. Oops."

The patient let out a scream and became limp. The heart monitor beside them beeped long and loud.

Dr. Zed put down his knife and looked at Axton. "It's fine, just a bandit anyways." He smiled with his eyes at Axton.

"Uh huh, sure." Axton put down the saw and hammer. "Look, I just want some Med-Hypos."

"How many you need?" asked Dr. Zed in that uncanny friendly tone of his.

"Twelve," replied Axton, thinking two should be enough for each vault hunter.

Dr. Zed walked out of the operating room and returned with a small box holding twelve Med-Hypos. The tubes full of red nanomachine fluid glistened under the surgical lights.

"Now you sure it's not something that I can take care of with surgery?" asked Dr. Zed eagerly. "I'll do it for free."

"No. Sorry." Axton handed the credits over and backed away with the box of Med-Hypos. "It's for uh, depression, yeah depression."

"Depression?" Dr. Zed's eyes widened. "Why didn't you say so? Haha I can take care of that with just a couple of cuts, I've worked on brains before you know…"

"How generous, thanks for the offer, really," said Axton and ran out of the clinic.

* * *

The door to the garage opened and the legless torso of a large robot floated in. The mechanic sitting in a lawn chair looked back and saw the robot slowly coming towards him.

"Oh, crap, is you Hyperion?" The man took off his cap and scratched his head. "I heard all of you are robots and you eat metal out of the garbage and stuff." He put his hat back on.

"Knew you wired death machines would be coming for me soon. If you're here to kill me you should probably know." The man suddenly jumped out of his seat onto a nearby barrel and assumed a kung-fu pose. "You'll never take me alive, you robotic sumbitch!"

The man relaxed when he noticed the two ladies behind the hovering robot. "Wait a minute...!" He jumped off the barrel and walked towards Gaige and Maya. "Well, hang me upside down from a telephone pole, cover me in honey, and leave me to a slow death at the hands of hungry spiderants - you guys ain't Hyperion robots, y'all are vault hunters! That's like a unicorn!"

Gaige and Maya looked at each other; neither knew how to reply to what the man just said. Maya wanted to ask him what in the world a telephone pole was but decided against it, the man made it sound like something perverted.

"Yeah, we're vault hunters." Maya hesitantly extended her hand.

Scooter gladly shook her hand and whooped. "Sanctuary is saved, how can I help you two ladies? Name's Scooter by the way."

"You got any spare parts? I'm trying to upgrade Deathtrap." Gaige slapped Deathtrap on the back.

"Parts? Girl I got every kind of parts a banana shaking robot could shake his banana at. They're all in that box over there." Scooter pointed towards a large metal box on the other side of the garage.

Gaige skipped to the box, leaned all the way over it, and searched for parts. "Wow, you even have a digistruct auxiliary reinterfacer circuit in here, sweet!"

"Heh, heh, yeah. That's sweet," agreed the preoccupied Scooter, thinking of a different object as he gazed in Gaige's direction. Maya grabbed his right ear and ripped his attention away from Gaige.

"Don't even think about it," whispered Maya into Scooter's frightened face. "Or I will melt your brain." She formed a small phaselock orb with her other hand.

"Aw shucks, you a Siren too? Please don't tell Lily, she already swore she was gonna melt my …buddy, if I don't behave, I don't wanna lose my brain too."

"What's she like?" Maya let go of Scooter's ear.

"Lily?" Scooter rubbed his ear gently. "Jus scarier than a ten headed skag licker on a busy night, I think."

Maya shook her head and sat down in the lawn chair. She made Scooter leave the garage until Gaige was finished scavenging.

* * *

_So this is Sanctuary. Huh, I thought it'd be smaller. _

"I EAT CLOWNS AND CONFETTI!" Krieg slapped his head again, causing all the other people in the street to keep even further away.

_Yeah, keep that up, soon we'll have the whole street to ourselves._

"GET OUT OF MY HEAD!"

_Sigh, just don't kill anyone. Remember,_ _if you ever kill an innocent person, I will destroy us… _

"SHUT UP!"

"Look mommy, that man's crazy."

Krieg spun around to locate the source of the voice. A frightened mother quickly picked up the young girl and ran away.

_The girl! She looked like… no, couldn't be. She'd be older by now._

"THE MIND FLAYERS ARE AT IT AGAIN!" Krieg chased after the woman and child.

_Stop. What are you doing? It's not her. And that was her mother, not the mind flayers you moron._

"I'LL STOP THE PAIN, DROWN IT OUT!"

They reached a dead end, and Krieg walked slowly towards the two cornered victims.

"Please sir," begged the mother. "Please don't kill us, spare my baby!"

"The pain train has no stops at this station…"

"Leave my mommy alone you jerk." The little girl tossed a rock at Krieg and stood protectively in front of the shaking woman.

The rock hit Krieg's chest and bounced harmlessly off. Krieg stopped and stared back into the girl's defiant eyes.

Krieg stood staring at the girl, waiting for the voice.

…_What do you want from me! I don't remember… I haven't seen that face in so long I can't remember, god I can't remember what she looks like anymore._

Krieg turned and walked away. "Sorry, rocks and candy don't mix."

Down a different street, he saw a boy struggling to reach a toy pistol stuck on a roof. Three other boys stood around the first, bullying him.

"Hahah, come on? You can't reach it?" The gang shoved the boy and beat on him. "That's what you get for not giving it to me," taunted the biggest kid.

"But it's a gift from my dad," cried the little boy, curled up into a ball on the muddy ground.

"Your dad's dead you stupid slagli-" the boys stopped when they noticed the psycho standing right behind them.

"I WILL BATHE IN YOUR MEAT CHUNKS AND YOUR FAMILY IS NEXT!"

The three bigger boys ran away crying. Krieg watched them disappear down the street before scaling the wall and retrieving the toy. He held it in his hand as he stared down at the boy at his feet. The kid had wet his pants.

"TAKE MY GUTS AND-" But the boy dashed off before Krieg could finish, and Krieg watched as the boy disappeared down the same alleyway the three other kids had taken.

_We earned him another beating, go us. But they're right to be scared, we need to stay away from other people._

Krieg sat moping atop a pile of garbage in a dead-end street. His only companion was Claptrap, who was singing dubstep to himself inside a small hastily arranged shack.

_Good thing we're already crazy._

"Hey minion number five, what do you think of this cool pad Rolank and Lily bought me? Pretty sweet amiright?"

Krieg drew a stick figure in the mud with his finger.

"You are really bad at drawing minion number five, no offense, I can't stop myself from thinking outloud!"

_This is where we belong, away from the normal people. You're just as bad as this annoying robot, I'm sure they're relieved we're gone too. _

A shadow blocked out the sunshine over Krieg's drawing. He looked up and saw Maya standing there, looking down at him with an exasperated and amused look on her face.

"Krieg, I've been looking for you all over Sanctuary."

_Why? It's just pity, that's all it is._

Krieg looked despondently back down at his drawing.

"Hey minion number one! What do you think of my pad?"

"Pretty cool Claptrap." Maya looked back at Krieg and smiled. "I never paid you back for saving my life you know."

"Minion number one! That is so sweet, I-"

Maya offered a hand to Krieg. "Come on, let me buy you a drink."

Krieg jumped up and hugged her tightly.

"Huh? Krieg?"

"DON'T MAKE THIS WEIRD." Krieg let go and followed Maya happily away from Claptrap.

_Why, why is she being nice to us? Doesn't she know we'll only keep other people away? They run from me, but she doesn't have to live like this! WHY!_

"Oh my god that's the siren." Krieg watched as the young man who blurted out those words backed against the wall as he and Maya passed in the street. Krieg looked on ahead, and noticed the fearful whispering that preceded them down every street. People turned down different roads or went indoors as they walked by, and all of them had their terrified eyes fixed on Maya, not him.

_Those bastards._

Krieg lunged for the nearest resident but was stopped by a phaselock bubble.

"Don't, it's not worth it." Maya let Krieg out of the bubble. She forced a smile as she stared at her feet. "Besides, I'm used to it."

_I am so stupid. How did I not realize… I'm sorry Maya._

"I'm sorry Maya."

Maya's head shot up. "Wait, what did you just say?"

"NO CLOWNS FOR DINNER!"

"HOLA AMIGOS!"

Maya and Krieg turned to see Salvador walking towards them from Moxxi's bar.

Maya could tell from the way he wobbled and his flushed cheeks that the truxican was drunk. "Hey, you started without us," she said, happily indignant.

Salvador had both hands behind his back. "What do you get when I'm drunk?"

Maya thought for a second and smiled, but she didn't want to ruin his joke so she answered, "I don't know, what?"

"A BEERZERKER, GET IT?" Salvador revealed the full beer mug he had in each hand. He put both mugs to his lips and chugged as Maya watched in stunned awe.

"Are those your friends?" asked the girl clinging to Axton's arm on the other side of the street. Axton was tired of telling her stories about how cool he was, and he knew exactly how to get rid of her.

"They sure are, hey let's go meet them." He started walking towards the rowdy group and the girl detached and drifted away. Thought so. He smirked to himself but didn't feel any better.

"Sir Hammerlock said he was buying us drinks didn't he?" asked Axton as he joined the group.

"Yoohoo, boys, don't you want your drinks?" Sir Hammerlock waved at them from the bar door. He was drunk too. "Oh I can't wait to get hammered!" He ducked back into the bar and they could hear Gaige say something to him inside.

"Is he, is he alright?" asked Maya. "He's speaking kinda funny."

"LOOSE LIPS SINK SHIPS." Krieg charged into the bar, causing an uproar inside.

Salvador, Axton and Maya entered the bar too, eager to follow Roland's suggestion and just relax.

Just inside, they could already hear Gaige telling Sir Hammerlock and Moxxi a joke. "So a Truxican, a Commando, and a Siren walk into a bar..."

* * *

Zero watched the other vault hunters enter the bar from a distant rooftop. "_Seems fun._"

He turned back around to face the four armed mercenaries standing on the web of thin roofs with him.

"Hee hee, you're an assassin too, aren'tcha?" asked the skinny tall one with the shotgun with a lasersight. "You get in our way and you'll be sorry, right Wot?"

"Right, just tell us where Lillith the siren is and we'll let you go, right Oney?"

"Yeah, we'll let you go, we'll even give you a piece of the pie, right Reeth?"

"Hahaha, yeah, right!" The four assassins laughed together as Zero studied them.

"_Do not be afraid. / You're death will be quite painless. / I have the last laugh._" Zero pulled out his blade and taunted the four.

"I'm gonna stick you like a skag!" Wot rushed forward and thrusted his bayonet through Zero. The hologram disappeared before Wot could gloat, and the assassin looked down to find Zero's katana was sticking out of his chest.

The other assassins fired their guns wildly, trying to hit the invisible killer. They fell one by one to the katana, and the last one fled as the laughing ghost chased him.

"_Hahahahaha._" Zero decapitated the man, and kicked the head off the roof. A red zero appeared in front of his helmet. "_Not Enough. I require a challenge._" He slashed the roof under him in frustration. "_I want a challenge._"

"Hey ninja boy."

Zero looked at the headless body beside his feet. The ECHO device attached to it called out to him again.

"Guess who this is?"

"_Ugly Zack?_"

"Aw, sniff, aw look you hurt my feelings, sniff. You're an assassin, right?"

"…_Yes._"

"Cool, just checkin, hey take this ECHO device, I'll let you know when I think of a challenge for ya." Handsome Jack laughed and terminated the connection.

Zero stood over the body for a while, motionless. He then reached down and ripped the ECHO device off the body. He put it inside his storage deck unit and walked away, towards the bar where the other vault hunters were.

"_I need a drink._"


	10. Chapter 10: Reasons

**Author's Note: Hey guys, been a while. I can't update as much due to school and other stuff, so I apologize if the time between updates gets a bit longer. This chapter is a bit short but I felt I needed to do it, anyways next chapter will be tundra express so expect a really long one, and probably a long delay (sorry!). As always, enjoy! and leave a review if you can, thanks!**

Blake held his right eye open for the eye scanner.

"_Access granted,_" chirped the door, and slid open as Blake stepped into Jack's office.

Jack was sitting in his throne-like office chair, facing away from the door and staring out at Pandora through the gigantic window that formed the fourth wall of his office. Blake stopped at the president's desk and waited for the man to finish the conversation he was having with his daughter on the ECHOcomm.

"Do you like that diamond pony daddy bought you?" said Jack affectionately into his ECHO device. "Do you want another one?" Jack didn't give his daughter a chance to answer. "I'll buy you another one, no I'll buy ten more, we'll build you your own stable. How bout that? You like that?" Jack answered for her, "Course you do."

Blake studied his fingers as he listened with mild amusement to the babbling of an over-doting father. At long last, Jack hanged up after an "I love you" and turned his attention to Blake.

"What do you want," asked Jack, returning to his arrogant mannerisms.

"The board of directors have been trying to contact you, for several hours."

Jack rolled his eyes and put his feet up on the desk. "What the hell do those morons want now? I thought all the extra cash from mining Pandora would've shut them up by now."

"They want to know why you're using most of the Eridium we mine to charge a 'vault key'. It's not… profitable."

Jack jumped to his feet and slammed both fists on the table. "What the hell do those bastards know about Pandora huh? I'm the one who got us a monopoly on Eridium! I'm the one who made this company what it is today! Without me, Hyperion'd still be stuck selling steward bots and canned skag!"

Blake put the paper chart on the desk between Jack's fists. "Nevertheless, the price of our stock has plateaued. The crimson raider attacks and related expenditures are beginning to affect our bottom line." Blake did his best to mask the disdain in his voice; he couldn't understand why Jack started a war against the people of Pandora. Hyperion could've mined Eridium in relative peace if they had left the locals alone. The needless extermination of the natives only served to turn the mostly harmless population against them and their mining operations, causing the company unnecessary loss.

Jack looked down at the chart; there was a huge upward spike in the stock price that slowly settled on a new, much higher value than before the spike. He sat back down and smirked. "Those greedy pigs, it's never enough is it."

"They're demanding answers. Our stockholders aren't happy."

Jack spun back around in his chair to face Pandora. "Tell them the vault key is gonna open a second vault, filled with even more unimaginable riches. That ought to keep them drooling like retards long enough."

"What about the warrior?"

"Why not, tell them the vault also comes with an invincible warrior, and we'll use it to wipe Pandora clean." Jack laughed. "By the time I'm done with Pandora it'll be a paradise."

Jack stood up and walked over to the window and planted his hands on the glass. He watched the glass as the faded reflection of Blake exited the room. "By the time I'm done, it'll be a paradise," vowed Jack softly as he stared at Pandora through the glass. It'll be a planet free of danger for his little girl, and he wouldn't need to restrain her condition anymore either. They'd just live happily together forever. He smiled absentmindedly as he got lost in daydreams of his personal heaven. "It'll be our paradise, my little angel."

* * *

"Eridium." The short haired woman held the glowing purple brick up for the gathered vault hunters to see. She put the brick down on the table and continued her lecture, addressing the vault hunters sitting in fold out chairs squeezed around the table inside the cluttered lab. "This substance is what's charging the vault key, it's also very valuable thanks to a long list of unique properties and applications I shall not bore you with, just know if you find any to bring it back to me. I'm Patricia Tannis by the way," finished Tannis, finally introducing herself.

"We met yesterday when you came into our HQ building, but the surprise of having six new people walk in on me having a private conversation with Roland was too overwhelming and I wasn't able to introduce myself then." Tannis took a deep breath as she finished her long explanation. She was borderline hysterical. "I want you to know I-"

"Tannis," interrupted Roland as he stood up, halting the woman with his voice and a gentle motion for her to be seated. It looked like he'd have to do most of the explaining, she was still much too excited by the new vault hunters.

"The point is, you find Eridium, you bring it back to us." Roland pointed at the half eaten pizza in the center of the table. "Things like that wouldn't be possible without supplies from off world. We sell our Eridium to smugglers on the blackmarket and in return they give us what we need. Raids on Hyperion facilities are getting riskier, so every little bit of Eridium you find is going to help."

"I'd imagine keeping that shield up isn't cheap," said Axton, referring to the domelike energy shield that protected Sanctuary.

"Thankfully, neither is Eridium," answered Roland. He sat back down and checked the time. "It's about time for you guys to go prepare an ambush for that train, good luck vault hunters."

The vault hunters filed out of the door. Axton was the last to leave. At the door, he turned to speak, "Why are you doing this Roland?"

Roland, taken off guard, stopped leaning on his chair and sat up straight. "Why what?"

"Why this," Axton gestured at the lab and outside at all of Sanctuary. "Why bother running a city when you've got all that Eridium? You could've just escaped with your fortune by now.

Roland smiled. "I bet you're here for the same reason I was. Fame, fortune, and an army that wants you dead for desertion."

"You hit the nail on the head Roland, that's why I'm suspicious why you're still here, no offense."

"None taken. Come on, I want to show you something." Roland waved for Axton to follow him to the second floor. They climbed the stairs and walked out onto the balcony. Roland pointed out civilians in the plaza below them. "They're the reason I'm still here."

"You actually want to protect them," stated Axton, sounding skeptical.

"I _will_ protect them." Roland clinched his fists as a pained expression came over his face. "First time I saw Jack's loaders wipe out a town I found my first reason to stay and fight; it was a young boy, sole survivor, he escaped the robot army by hiding in a trash heap. When we pulled him out he was cut all over and had a bunch of used needles stuck to his body."

Roland pointed at a Lanceman with a broken helmet sitting on a bench in the plaza. "There's the second reason. We found him dying in an abandoned field hospital, the other Lancemen had retreated and left him for the loaders, luckily we arrived before they did."

Roland looked up at the Hyperion space station. "See, everywhere we went we picked up a few more reasons. Wasn't long before we had a city full of em."

Roland turned to go back downstairs. "Most of these people were born on Pandora Axton, they don't know how or refuse to live anywhere else. And they all want revenge."

"So that's you're reason," Axton stared down at the other vault hunters walking away towards the plaza. "That's a pretty good reason."

"I certainly wouldn't mind if they decided to cheer my name every now and again though, that'd be cool."

Axton turned to see Roland smiling at him.

"But a hero needs more than just fame and fortune Axton, he needs something to protect. That's what I learned anyways." Roland nodded. "Actually, I think I'll come with you guys, I could use the exercise."

"Thanks."

Roland slapped Axton on the back. "Don't mention it. Pandora's our home. Once we kick Jack's ass out we're gonna need all the help we can get fixin her up."

"Turn it into a paradise huh?" joked Axton.

"I don't know about that." Roland laughed. "It's Pandora after all."

"YO, AXTON!" Salvador's shout echoed across the whole area, catching everyone's attention. Axton looked down to see the vault hunters waiting for him. "Andale amigo!"

"Are you two done making out up there?" asked Lillith impatiently from next to Salvador. "We've got a train to catch, remember?"

Axton and Roland jumped down and joined the other vault hunters.

"Sorry for the wait guys," said Axton with renewed enthusiasm. "Now let's go blow up a train!"


	11. Chapter 11: Of Tea and Crumpets

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hi all it's been a while, been busy with a lot of school stuff so yeah, like I said updates are gonna be few and far between :( But anyways I hope you enjoy the latest chapter, writing Tina was a lot of fun but also tough and I hope I got her essence right. Let me know what you think of the chapter with a review, I'd appreciate it. Thanks!**

Sir Hammerlock watched intently as the large bug before him morphed into a cocoon.

"Fascinating. These Varkids appear to morph in the presence of danger."

He looked back at the vault hunters behind him; the ground around them was scattered with dead varkids, and the vault hunters held their guns aimed at the rapidly growing cocoon.

Satisfied with the notes and video he'd taken, Sir Hammerlock stepped out of the way and let the vault hunters kill the last varkid before it could burst out of the cocoon.

"Thanks for the assistance vault hunters." Sir Hammerlock tipped his hat at the group. "These Varkids will make a wonderful addition to my almanac."

"Are you sure you don't want to come along?" asked Roland, and pointed at the two Buzzard helicopters approaching to pick them up.

"Sorry chaps, but I make a poor soldier. I'm afraid I'd only slow you down." Sir Hammerlock wished them luck and headed back towards the Fast Travel station.

The Crimson Raider helicopters landed and the vault hunters got on. Gaige, sitting on the edge of the vehicle, watched as the ground shrank away beneath her dangling feet.

"Enjoying the ride huh?" Roland smiled as he too looked down at the grey, mountainous terrain.

Gaige swung her legs happily in the wind. "Yeah, can I fly it?"

"Kid, it's easier than driving," The pilot shouted back at her.

"You can try once we get to the base." Roland pointed at the mountaintop that just came into view. A tower and several helipads had flattened the peak, and as the helicopter got closer, the vault hunters could make out several anti-air turrets aimed in their direction.

"Verify yourself, spell insouciant" came the order over the helicopter's radio.

"The bandits can't spell," explained Roland.

The pilot cleared his throat and started spelling unsurely. "Uh, I-n-s-o... damnit Mordecai that's too hard, gimme another one!"

"I-n-s-o-u-c-i-a-n-t," finished Gaige proudly.

"Damn, can't believe you got that one," said Mordecai over the radio. "Was that one of the new vault hunters? Roland told me about you guys, welcome to Tundra Express amigos."

The buzzards landed and the vault hunters were greeted on the helipad by a skinny man with a hawk on his shoulder.

The man waved at them. "Yo, I'm Mordecai." Mordecai then pointed at the bird on his left shoulder. "And this is Bloodwing." The bird screeched a greeting.

"Mordecai is our top sniper," said Roland as he walked over to the man. "He's also got the intel on the train we're going to blow up."

Bloodwing flew over and perched itself on Lillith's right arm as she approached from the other buzzard.

"Woah, hey Lillith. Heh, is this a reunion?" asked Mordecai, amused. He led the way towards the tower. "If I'd known I would've bought a cake or some rakk-ale at least."

"You can't possibly be out of rakk-ale." Lillith petted Bloodwing affectionately as they walked. "You've never been sober more than four days."

"Oi that ain't true Lillith," said Mordecai, acting hurt. "I've never been sober more than three days, you know that."

As the vault hunters were about to step into the tower, a soldier shouted from behind them, "Heads up, Moonshot incoming!"

"Oh this is gonna be pretty, check it out guys." Mordecai pointed at the largest turret by the helipads.

The turret was tracking the distant fireball coming towards them from the Hyperion moonbase. After a short period of charging, the turret fired off a large pulse of energy. The fireball heading their way exploded as the energy ball collided with it, the resulting fireworks display outshined the sun for a second.

"An anti-bombardment turret," said Axton, impressed. "Where'd you guys get all this fancy equipment?"

"When the Crimson Lance abandoned Pandora, they left a more than adequate armory behind," answered Roland.

"Yeah, makes me wonder how long we'd have lasted if General Knoxx had been serious," added Mordecai grimly. "Hate to say it, but man I'm glad the dude was depressed." He flipped off the Hyperion moonbase.

"Anyways, let's go over the plan Mordecai." Roland walked into the tower followed by the rest of the group.

Inside the tower, Mordecai pulled up a detailed hologram of the area. He walked over to a train track a good distance away from the digital tower and pointed out the bridge the trains used to cross a wide valley.

"This is where we stop the train, I'll add the location to your minimap. We just need some explosives to blow the bridge. I'm sure Tina'll give you what you need for that."

"Tina?" said Axton. He and the other new vault hunters looked around, half expecting a woman to jump out of the shadows.

Roland walked over to the elevator on the other side of the room. "She's probably down in her workshop, let's go introduce you guys. I'm sure she'll be thrilled to meet some new friends."

The vault hunters walked over to the elevator, but before Krieg could get on Roland extended his hand to keep the psycho back.

"I'm sorry Krieg, but it'd be best if you didn't come."

"Why can't he come?" asked Maya.

"I'll explain in the elevator, I'm sorry Krieg."

Mordecai took a bottle of rakk-ale out of the fridge by the door. "Hey you can stay up here and chill with me man."

Krieg grunted and ran out of the tower, ignoring the proffered bottle of rakk-ale.

The silence Krieg left behind lingered. Mordecai shrugged and opened the bottle of rakk-ale with his knife. "Is he okay? He's acting a little loco, definitely looks like a loco."

"Yeah, he's been acting strange since we got here hasn't he?" Gaige turned to Maya for support.

"I suppose." Maya pursed her lips in thought. "He hasn't shouted anything crazy since we left Sanctuary right?"

"No he hasn't." Axton wiped the smile off his face before Maya noticed. "Hey let's go meet Tina, I'm sure Krieg'll be fine."

"Sorry amigos," said Salvador, who took up half of the space in the elevator as the other vault hunters squeezed into it around him.

"Uh, Sal, you stink," said Gaige, with nose pinched firmly shut while squeezed between Lillith and the truxican.

Salvador grinned. "It's the smell of manliness."

The last one not in the elevator, Zero waved at the other vault hunters as the doors began to close. "_Sorry, no more room._"

Gaige struggled frantically as the doors shut. "Wait, trade me Zero! Zero!"

After the elevator left, Zero turned his attention to Mordecai, who was leaning against the wall, finishing up the bottle of rakk-ale.

"_You're their best sniper._" Zero reached for the sniper rifle on his back and brought it into his arms.

"That I am, and I'm even better when I'm drunk." Mordecai burped and took another bottle from the fridge. "Uh, can I get you something to drink amigo?"

"_No._"

As the elevator descended, Roland explained, "I couldn't let Krieg come with us. I hope you understand, it's for Tina's sake."

"You're afraid Krieg would scare her?" asked Maya.

Roland nodded. "Tina's been through a lot. She escaped from Hyperion several years ago. A bandit gang had sold her and her family to Hyperion to be used in Eridium experiments. She made it out, her parents didn't."

The vault hunters descended the rest of the way in silence. The elevator reached the bottom floor and through the door the vault hunters heard an explosion. The door slid open and the vault hunters saw smoke coming out of a garage inside of the cave-like basement.

A coughing girl stumbled out of the garage and wiped the soot off of her haphazard dress. Noticing the group, she ran towards them with a crazy smile on her face.

"Roland!" she shouted. "and Lillith and Bloodwing? Best day eva!"

The girl leapt into a hug with Roland. She laughed as Roland spun her around a bit before setting her back down. Bloodwing flew off of Lillith's shoulder and landed in the girl's arms; the bird didn't mind being squeezed tightly at all and returned the girl's affection with light pecks on the face.

Roland turned to the baffled vault hunters and smiled. "Vault hunters, I'd like you to meet Tina."

Axton cleared his throat and gave Roland a questioning look. "Your demolitions expert, is a twelve year old girl."

"I'm thirteen biatch!" Tina let go of bloodwing and returned to hugging Roland's hip. She blew a raspberry at Axton and assumed a sophisticated voice. "And I am _the _demolitions expert? I'll have you know, I have _twelve_ degrees in the art of boom boom. Dumb-butt."

Losing his temper, Axton retorted, "Twelve degrees? Wow, you must be sooooo smart. "

Devastated, Tina looked down at the ground and began sniffling.

Lillith sighed. "Way to go killer, you just made a little girl cry. You must be sooooo proud."

"Wha- But she started it! Come on!" whined Axton, beginning to feel pretty embarrassed. Why was he always the bad guy? Axton looked for support from the others but Maya, Salvador, and Gaige avoided eye contact, and he didn't like the stony look on Roland's face.

"Okay, I got carried away, sorry," admitted Axton with his head down, recognizing defeat. Then he noticed the wicked grin on Tina's face; the little brat had faked it. "Why you-"

"It's nice to meet you Tina, I'm Maya," interrupted Maya, before Axton could dig a deeper hole for himself.

"Sup shawty!" said Tina and then switched back to her classy persona. "I am ever so pleased to meet you."

Salvador, Gaige, and even Axton introduced themselves to Tina before she dragged them back to her workshop.

Inside, they found sitting in chairs two large stuffed animal rabbits.

"This here's Mushy Snugglebites," Tina petted the rabbit on the left and then introduced the one on the right. "And this is Felicia Sexopants. These fiiiine-ass womens could stop that train for yas, but I'ma need some badonkadonks first."

"Badonkadonks?" Maya asked Roland.

Roland looked around the garage filled with explosives. "Are you sure none of these can do the job, Tina?"

"Pffbbtt, no way." Tina pulled a blueprint out of a nearby desk and showed it off. On it was a small stuffed animal rabbit impaled through its back with a huge missile. "Imma need this kinda Badonkadonk!"

Roland cupped his mouth with his hand as he thought. "We don't have anything that big upstairs either."

"You might find some in that bandit camp wayyy yonder," hinted Tina innocently, then excitedly added. "Oh and while you're there you can pick up Fleshstick!"

A sad look came over Roland's face and he knelt by Tina and put his hands on her shoulders. "Tina… is this about your tea party?"

Tina avoided his gaze and instead stared at the ground. "I want my tea party," she muttered bitterly.

Axton looked around, wondering if anybody else understood what was going on. The other vault hunters were just as confused, but Lillith had a sad look on her face as well.

"Okay Tina." Roland hugged the girl and patted her on the back. "You can have your tea party."

Tina jumped with joy. "Really! Ohmygod omigod omigod, I'll start preparing then!" She ran to the edge of the garage and began looting through a pile of clothing. "Ohhhh Sir Reginald Von Bartlesby? Where are you Sir Reginald Von Bartlesby!"

"This isn't serious, is it?" Axton asked as Roland returned to them.

"I'm sorry soldier, but I'll explain on the way out."

"You're starting to sound like Angel, Roland," said Lillith with a smirk.

The Angel interrupted them on the ECHO communicator. "I don't- I don't really sound like that do I?"

"Well you do say that a lot. The whole I'll explain later talk is getting a little cliché," said Axton as the group got back into the elevator.

"Sorry guys," said Angel, embarrassed. "I can't reveal much more than I already have. Just know that you are on the right path."

"It's okay Angel," said Roland. "We trust you."

"Yeah… thanks." Angel smiled weakly and disconnected.

When they exited the tower, Bloodwing flew off and landed on the top of the building, where Mordecai and Zero were standing with sniper rifles in hand.

Roland called out to the two, "Mordecai, Zero, you guys coming?"

"Sorry Roland, hic, we're in the middle of a competition," Mordecai shouted back.

Roland shook his head and returned to the vault hunters waiting at the helipads. He checked the time with his ECHO and then said, "Okay vault hunters, I've a job for you." He marked a location on their minimaps. "A Hyperion train should be dropping off payment here for the bandits who've been mining Eridium for Jack. I want you to go there and steal the cash."

"Hey what about Fleshstick?" asked Gaige.

"Me and Lillith will take care of that. It's in the opposite direction so we'll need to split up for now."

"But who is he? And what's the deal with the tea party?"

"Fleshstick was the bandit chief who sold her family to Hyperion."

"Oh," said Gaige, not knowing what else to say.

Roland reassured her with a determined look. "It's okay, she's strong. Go rob the train and when you get back, we can have ourselves a tea party to celebrate."

"Yeah," said Gaige and nodded. She then followed Axton, Salvador and Maya into the waiting Buzzard.

* * *

A slowly spinning wind turbine was the only interesting thing the guard could see. He wondered when the other bandits would come back from the raid; they'd discovered recently where Hyperion drops off payment for the mining gangs, and sent all of their buzzards there to steal the cash for themselves. The scrap metal castle behind him still held a good amount of people, but it seemed none of them were interested in coming out to alleviate his boredom.

He was just about to give up and fall asleep in his chair when he noticed a buff figure trudging up the path to the base. As the figure got closer, he could finally tell it was a Psycho.

"Man, another Psycho? Great, just what we needed." The guard stood up and blocked the tall psycho's path.

"Look buddy you're gonna have to go somewhere else. We've got enough lunatic mouths to feed here." The psychos were good for distraction and cannon fodder, but too many could ruin a gang.

The guard pointed in the direction of the wind turbine. "There's another gang that way that might take you in, now scram." He tried to keep the nervousness out of his voice.

The psycho looked in that direction and screamed in anguish, "PINWHEELS, I REMEMBER ONLY THE WHEELS."

The guard raised his gun too latel; the psycho had already buried his axe in his chest. "WHERE IS SHE WHERE IS SHE? IS SHE HERE? I'LL TEAR OUT YOUR SOULS AND MAKE YOU TALK."

"What are you talking about…" coughed the guard and fell to the ground dead.

The commotion drew the attention of the other bandits inside the castle, and the lone psycho charged at them.

"I can't see her anymore," The psycho shouted as he chopped in half the first bandit within reach. "She was so clear and bright."

The psycho grabbed the second bandit and headbutted him to the ground. Blood from the bandit's smashed face trickled down the psycho's mask as he jumped towards the horde coming at him. "But the blood is in my eyes, and now I can only watch the ocean of blood."

The screams of dying men almost drowned out the psycho's voice as he madly chopped and headbutted his way through the increasingly bloody sea of people. "Its waves crash against my forehead again and again, AND I JUST NEED TO LEARN HOW TO SURF!"

* * *

"Why does it feel like we're the bad guys?" Gaige ducked behind the concrete slab again as bullets peppered her position.

"Don't let the bandits steal the cash," ordered the scavenger in charge of the bandits, as they peeked out again from their position behind the other side of the train to shoot at the vault hunters.

"They're even calling us bandits," complained Gaige as she summoned Deathtrap.

"Think of it this way Gaige." Axton tossed out his turret beside her. "Jack's just going to kill them once he's done using them and take back most of his cash."

"Eh, guess you're right."

"Aw just take the money you damn bandits!" The scavenger and his gang ran away.

"Well, that was easy." Axton stood up and headed towards the train.

"I don't think it was us they were running from." Maya pointed back at the swarm of Buzzard Helicopters heading their way.

The Crimson Lance pilot came over the ECHO. "There's too many of them! I'm sorry guys but we can't afford to lose another Buzzard, I- I gotta go!"

"What? Come back here you coward." Gaige waved her arms at the escaping Buzzard.

"Get in my shield people!" Axton dived inside of the protective bubble his turret provided as countless rockets were fired towards them.

"Come and get some pendejos!" Salvador leveled his two machine guns at the incoming rockets and fired, blasting most out of the air before they hit the turret's shield.

But enough got through to break the shield, leaving the vault hunters exposed as the swarm fired another barrage.

"Deathtrap protect!" commanded Gaige, and the robot shot a beam towards them that restored the turret's shield.

"An upgrade huh? That'll come in handy," said Axton as they kept firing at the agile buzzards.

The next salvo brought down Deathtrap to Gaige's dismay. Recognizing a lost cause, Axton shouted, "As much as I hate it, we have to run."

But just then two of the buzzards spiraled out of control and crashed into the ground near the train and the vault hunters heard Mordecai's voice over the ECHO comm.

"You guys okay? Hic, just leave this to me and Hero."

"_It's Zero._"

Two more buzzards fell out of the sky as their pilots were sniped. Gaige waved back at the far away tower. "Are you guys having a snipe off? Five hundred credits says Zero wins!"

"You're on chica." Salvador took five hundred credits out of his pocket. "Don't lose, mi hermano"

"Gracias Salvador," said Mordecai. "That'll buy us enough rakk-ale for a week or two eh?"

Under the protective shield of the turret, Salvador and Gaige laughed and cheered as the Buzzards fell out of the sky in pairs. Seconds later, each sniper had killed five buzzards and only one remained. As it turned to retreat, the pilot took two bullets to the head and the last buzzard crashed as well.

To their disappointment, the train had been a trap and contained only a bomb. But the Crimson Lance Buzzard picked them up, and on the way back the vault hunters were at least able to listen to the two snipers, Gaige, and Salvador argue over who got the last kill.

* * *

Axton, Gaige, Maya, and Salvador stepped out of the helicopter and walked over to the long table set up in the field free of vegetation or varkids. On the table and in front of each of the seats was placed a small card with names written fancily.

Gaige, Maya, and Salvador all found their respective positions and sat down.

"Hey Tina, where do I sit?" asked Axton, failing to find his card.

"Here, duh?" Tina pointed at the chair opposite Salvador. Axton scowled as he made his way to the seat reserved for one "Monsieur Doo Doo Head".

Tina skipped her way back to her seat on the other side of Gaige and Maya. "May I introduce Sir Reginald Von Bartlesby, a local aristocrat and purveyor of the fine arts."

Tina put the bottle containing a small varkid in the seat next to her. She adjusted the mustache and monocle attached to the bottle as Gaige and Maya politely introduced themselves to the aristocratic bug.

"Hm, Sir Reginald is it? I'd be very interested in getting to know him better."

Gaige and Maya turned to find Sir Hammerlock standing behind them.

"Hammerlock!" said the two, pleasantly surprised.

Hammerlock smiled and displayed the bulky tea set and snack tin he carried in his hands. "You didn't think you'd be having a tea party without me, did you? Bloody unlikely I say."

"Oh, my, god! Are those crumpets?" Tina bounced excitedly in her seat as Sir Hammerlock put the box full of crumpets on the table. "I'm gonna eat so many goddamn crumpets it's gonna be a crumpocalypse. Boo you da best."

"Er, you know it, dawg," replied Sir Hammerlock, in an attempt to speak her language.

"You can have the seat next to Princess Fluffybutt," said Tina happily, and pointed at the toy rabbit in the seat next to Sir Reginald.

A second Buzzard set down next to the first one, and everyone greeted Roland and Lillith as they approached carrying a tied up psycho.

"Now now, behave Fleshstick," grunted Lillith as she shoved the tattooed bandit into the electric chair at the head of the table next to Tina.

"I'm gonna eat your babies!" screamed Fleshstick as Roland tied him to the chair.

Roland and Lillith sat down in their seats next to Gaige and Maya. Tina welcomed everyone to her tea party as Sir Hammerlock's teapot was passed around and all of the teacups were filled. But as they were about to make a toast, the group was interrupted by Krieg running up, covered in bruises and shallow cuts.

"HAPPY UNBIRTHDAY!" he shouted to the silent Tina, and before Roland could stop him, Krieg ran up to the girl and handed her a small pinwheel made of scrap metal.

Tina stood up on her chair and took the toy from Krieg's trembling hands. It only looked like a pinwheel; it couldn't really spin since it was just pieces of scrap metal forced into the shape of a pinwheel.

"A pinwheel? Why?" Tina said with a wavering voice. "D- do you know me?"

"I KNOW IT'S YOUR UNBIRTHDAY."

Tina wiped her eyes with both hands while sniffling. Then she hugged Krieg, who slowly put his arms around her.

Fleshstick stopped struggling and stared for a moment at Tina and Krieg. "I remember you, you should be DEAD!"

Krieg let go of Tina and punched the bandit in the face, stunning him.

"Thank you Garcon," said Tina, returning to her cheerful demeanor, though there was a hint of cruelty in it. "Would you kindly smack Mister Flesh-stick again in his bitch face?"

Krieg obliged and smacked Fleshstick out of unconsciousness.

"Now hit Mister Sparks and start the partay!"

Krieg kicked the switch on the generator behind Fleshstick and electricity charged the tesla coils welded to the chair. Once fully charged, they started zapping Fleshstick and caused him to shake violently.

"AAAAAAAAAGH! LET ME LOOSE, YOU CRAZY IDIOTS!" screamed Fleshstick as the chair slowly fried him while the vault hunters sipped their tea.

"Watch out boss, there's some bandits incoming." The Buzzards lifted off and began firing at the approaching gang.

Roland and Axton both tossed out their turrets, and Gaige summoned Deathtrap. With that taken care of, the vault hunters returned to nonchalantly sipping their tea amidst the sound of gunfire, explosions, and screams. Zero and Mordecai joined in on the fun and started their competition anew using the bandits.

"So, you're a siren too huh?" Lillith asked Maya.

"Yes I am," replied Maya. "How long have you been on Pandora?"

"Long enough, that's for sure. Have you tried using Eridium yet?"

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know if it'll work for you, but Eridium has been making my power awesomer."

"What does it do for you? How do you take it?"

"Well…"

While Lillith and Maya chatted, Roland and Axton were busy in a discussion about their mutual love of turrets. Sir Hammerlock and Salvador argued heatedly over the merits of single action vs. automatic guns and Gaige played along with Tina and her pet varkid and toy bunny.

Tina sipped her tea and turned to Sir Reginald. "I read the most EXTRAORDINARY thing the other day, Sir Reginald. Something about slag experimentation - I forget the details."

"I'm sorry I sold out your family! I'm SORRYYYYY."

"Fleshstick! How DARE you interrupt Sir Reginald." Tina turned the dial on the remote next to her cup and the lightning intensified.

"NAAAAOO! NO MORE! NO MORE!"

Inspired, Gaige thought of another upgrade for Deathtrap. "Hey Tina, you mind if I take this chair after we're done? I've got a great idea for DT."

"Are you going to make him sparkle? You def need to make him sparkle girl." Tina finished her cup and held it out for Gaige to fill.

"Heck yeah I'm gonna make him sparkle! Oh man this is the best tea party ever."

Tina grinned widely at the complement. "You gotta say it like this shawty, say it with me. Best. Tea party. Eva!"


	12. Chapter 12: Intermission

Hi loyal readers, it's me, Claptrap! And I have good news! Thanks to my broken motherboard, I can break the fourth wall now! Dr. Zed says you're all just figments of my imagination that I created to deal with the crippling loneliness, but what does he know? He's not even a real doctor!

Now I know you guys are anxious, after that last chapter about my minions, to read about what I, the main character of this story, am doing back in Sanctuary. And since the author is being a lazy bum, it's up to me to save the day!

So anyways, after my minions and Rolank and Lily left Sanctuary, I realized the only thing keeping the city safe from Handsome Jack and the bandits of Pandora was me, and I didn't even have a gun yet! So I rolled my way down towards my old pal Marcus' shop to buy one. But before I got there I ended up in the middle of a crime scene.

The guy in charge said his name was Marshall Friedman, and he had five guys tied up in front of this dead body and he told me one of those five was the murderer. Then he said something about robots being better with calculations and stuff and he handed me a gun! Then he deputized me so now I'm like his partner. It's just like in the movies where a detective is paired up with a robot and they solve crimes together.

After I solved that easy case (it was the most suspicious looking guy) I rolled over to Moxxi's bar for a drink.

Rolank and Lily are going to be so surprised when they come back and see how I've cleaned up this town.

Well, I'm sure next chapter is going to be all about me and my adventures as the deputy of Sanctuary, but you should all leave a review reminding the author to not stray off topic again. You guys don't want another chapter just about my minions do you?


	13. Chapter 13: Deus Ex Machina

**Author's Note: Hey guys! Man this chapter was hard :( But I hope you like it! I'm actually pretty excited to write the next chapter, since I'll be able to write a part I've wanted to write for a while. As always, enjoy and leave a review! Reviews, especially constructive criticism is what keeps me going so gimme more fuel! Thanks :)**

**PS. This chapter is too long! I didn't have the time to really read through it multiple times to fix stuff so if you guys could find errors for me that'd be nice.**

The Hyperion base hovering in front of the moon blocked most of the moonlight from reaching Pandora, and in the middle of the night the two buzzard helicopters hovering above the bridge blended in with the darkness near perfectly.

Through a pair of night vision binoculars, Roland watched the approaching headlights of a train. He signaled for the other vault hunters aboard the buzzard to get ready.

As they waited, Gaige stared jealously at the grenade mod hooked to Krieg's belt. It was painted pink and had an adorable drawing of a bunny face on it. The psycho received it from Tina just before they left the base.

"I want it so bad, ughhh."

"No touching in the museum," warned Krieg, and lovingly touched the grenade mod.

Roland smiled and looked back at the two. "We can ask her to make you one when we get back Gaige."

The regular rhythm of the train coming down the tracks warned the group that it was close and Roland patted the pilot on the shoulder.

"Drop it."

The pilot pushed a button on the console in front of him and they heard the chagunk of two bombs detaching and then one explosion. The group covered their ears as a giant cloud of fire roared into the night sky beside their helicopter.

The train screeched to a halt just short of the destroyed bridge and the buzzards fired a barrage of missiles at the train, destroying the loaders exiting the nearest train cars.

"Good," said Roland and turned to the open side of the helicopter. "Let's get down there and-"

Something hitting the side of the helicopter interrupted him, and sent the helicopter into a spiraling descent.

"What was that?" shouted Gaige as she tried to hold on to the side of the helicopter.

"Everyone get out!" Roland grabbed Gaige around the waist and leaped out of the damaged buzzard. Roland looked up and saw with relief that Krieg and the pilot had made it out too. Then he noticed the other buzzard had also been attacked, and that Lillith and the other vault hunters had jumped out as well.

"Watch out Roland!" said Mordecai over the ECHOcomm, while watching them on the holodeck back at the base. "That was a Hyperion drone that hit you guys."

"How many?" asked Roland as they all landed safely in the valley below the bridge. "Mordecai, how many!"

"Crap. Just two." The vault hunters could hear the panic in Mordecai's voice. "I'm on my way, just hang on guys."  
"What's the matter?" Gaige summoned Deathtrap and looked to Roland. The grim expression on the soldier's face unnerved her. "I mean, it's a good thing there's only two, right?"

"It's Wilhelm," said Roland quietly.

"Wilhelm?"

"Retreat," shouted Roland to the group. "We have to get out of here now!"

The vault hunters started running after Roland but they were stopped by two large drones dropping out of the night sky and blocking their path.

The vault hunters fired at the drones, but the white one opened up its wings and projected a reflector shield in front of itself and the black drone.

The vault hunters leaped to the sides as the reflected bullets whizzed past them.

"Deathtrap, attack!" Gaige waved her arm and the robot flew towards the two drones with claws out.

When Deathtrap reached them, the two drones separated as a big figure dropped down from the cliff above and crushed the robot. The drones shot out flares to illuminate the valley, and the vault hunters saw now that what had dropped down was a giant cyborg. The exoskeleton he wore made him three times taller than any of the vault hunters, and the man looked down at the group with a smirk on his face.

"Wilhelm," spat Roland.

Wilhelm laughed. "You guys realize this was a trap right? We're watching your every move from the moonbase, you really think some weak diversionary tactics would've thrown us off your trail? Hah."

"Aw, you're not happy to see me Roland?" The smile on Wilhelm's face widened. "I'm happy to see you though. It's been a while since New Haven. I want you to know before I kill you here, I'm going to do to Sanctuary exactly what I did to New Haven."

The cyborg stomped on Deathtrap, crushing the robot into pieces with just one step.

"You're gonna regret that Jackhole," declared Gaige. She checked her mechanical arm to see how long she'd have to wait before enough energy was charged to summon DT again. "In five minutes you are going to regret that so much."

"What's a high school girl doing out here?" mocked Wilhelm. "Ah, I can't wait to hear you scream when I tear you limb from limb!" He charged towards the vault hunters, stomping his thick metal feet into the ground with each step, causing the earth to shake.

The vault hunter's spread out in the wide valley while firing their guns at Wilhelm, but the cyborg ignored their attacks as the bullets bounced harmlessly off of his metal exoskeleton and the energy shield around his exposed head.

The white drone hovered protectively over Wilhelm, constantly replenishing his shield and repairing the armor as the black drone flew around the valley, harassing the vault hunters with energy missiles.

"We have to take out the drones," ordered Roland as he tossed out his turret and directed his fire at the nimble drone flying above Wilhelm.

Gaige fired her assault rifle at Wilhelm as she ran, but the long steps of the cyborg soon caught up to hers and she rolled out of the way of Wilhelm's fist as it smashed into the spot where she just was.

"Gotcha little girl!"

But as Wilhelm reached for Gaige the drone above him was caught inside a phaselock bubble. Then an explosion next to his right ear knocked Wilhelm off balance as Lillith phase-walked onto his shoulder.

"Run kid," Lillith shouted as she fired her pistol at Wilhelm's head and then jumped off the shoulder.

Wilhelm yelled in annoyance and swung his right arm at Lillith, but the arm was deflected just enough for the siren to duck under by a katana that'd appeared out of thin air.

Zero then threw some kunai bombs at Wilhelm. The knives exploded into a cloud of black smoke, and the two vault hunters vanished and ran out of Wilhelm's reach.

As the coughing cyborg waved his arms in the air trying to dispel the black cloud around him, Roland and Axton unloaded with their guns and turrets on the drone still stuck in the phaselock above Wilhelm, finally bringing it down.

"Now's our chance, Krieg!" shouted Roland as he ducked back under the cover of his turret's shield.

As he ran, Krieg put his left hand in front of the pink grenade mod on his belt. A thick bundle of dynamite digistructed into his hand and he rushed towards Wilhelm with the lit dynamite hissing in his hand like a bunch of snakes. "I'M THE PIZZAMAN AND HERE'S THE SAUSAGE. OPEN WIDE!"

Krieg cocked his arm back and hurled the bundle at Wilhelm. The huge explosion ignited the smoke cloud, engulfing the cyborg in a blinding inferno.

"Holy crap," Axton laughed with relief. "That wasn't so tough."

A rocket fist flew out of the fire, hitting Krieg and sending the psycho airborne. Krieg bounced across the gravely terrain and rolled to a stop next to Axton and Roland. The psycho grunted with pain as Roland helped him back up.

"Now you've pissed me off!" The robotic voiced boomed out of the blaze as Wilhelm stepped out of it. His armor was covered in small scratches and minor burn marks. And his head was now hidden inside a blocky helmet, eliminating the last hint of humanity from the cyborg. The fist flew back and reattached itself to Wilhelm's left wrist.

The single robotic eye on the helmet focused on the gathered vault hunters. Wilhelm gave a battlecry as the missile banks on his back fired off a swarm of target seeking rockets.

Salvador fired his machine guns at the missiles as Maya phaselocked some more, and together they managed to stop nearly half. The vault hunters braced themselves as rockets exploded all around them.

"Tch, damn it." Axton struggled to his feet as the smoke and dirt raised by the explosions settled back down. He pulled out the empty health vial jabbed into his leg and dived over to the unconscious Maya. He took the health vial from her pack and stabbed it into her arm.

Dragging Salvador and Krieg behind him, Roland limped over to Axton and Maya. "We've got to retreat."

"Gee, you think?" said Lillith angrily as she approached carrying Gaige, who had a deep cut on her left leg and small cuts everywhere else. Blood had soaked through her school uniform and was dripping all over the ground and Lillith's arms.

Axton rushed over and stuck a health vial into her arm. Gaige nodded her thanks and carefully stood on her own again.

Wilhelm laughed as he took a step towards the vault hunters. "What's wrong? Is my Eridium treated armor too tough for you? Hahaha face it, I'm invincible, and you're all going to die!" Wilhelm digistructed another white drone with the device on his shoulder, and it began repairing the minor damage the vault hunters had done to the armor.

Wilhelm's advance was interrupted when the drone exploded again, and the cyborg looked over to his right to see a buzzard approaching with Mordecai hanging out the side taking potshots at him with a sniper rifle. "Grrr, more annoying flies!"

Zero suddenly appeared atop Wilhelm's helmet, and stabbed the cyborg in the robotic eye with his katana. "_Escape. Now._"

"Come on guys, get on!" shouted Mordecai as the buzzard landed next to the vault hunters.

Before anyone could though, the black drone dive-bombed out of the air, smashed into the buzzard, and exploded. Mordecai had jumped to safety when he noticed the drone, but the pilot wasn't so lucky.

"Goddamn it!" Mordecai picked his sniper rifle off the ground and reloaded it. "Fight or flight Roland?"

"We fight."

Zero leaped down to the vault hunters and took an extra sniper rifle from the wreckage of the buzzard. "_He is a challenge / If we all work together / We may have a chance._"

The damaged helmet parted and revealed Wilhelm's unscathed head. He sneered at the vault hunters in front of him. "Do you really think you stand a chance you idiots? Look around you, morons."

An army of loaders stood above the vault hunters on the cliff edge, their red eyes shined brightly in the night, forming a crimson rope that was in the middle of encircling the group.

Angel appeared on the ECHOcomm just then. "Don't give up, I-I think I've finally hacked into his system. Executing phase-shift."

The line of red lights blinked off. The two new drones at Wilhelm's side dropped to the ground and Wilhelm let out a bewildered shout as his exoskeleton fell to its knees and the chest popped open. Wilhelm's actual body, his head and a limbless torso, popped out and he landed face down in the dirt.

"What the hell?" Wilhelm wriggled on the ground helplessly as he watched Roland walk towards him. A look of realization came over the cyborg's face.

"Wait!" pleaded Wilhelm desperately, spittle flying from his mouth. "Listen to me this is-"

The gunshot echoed off the cliff wall. Roland put his pistol back in its holster. "That's for New Haven."

The vault hunters breathed out a collective sigh of relief.

"Holy hell. Angel, you are the best." Mordecai took a bottle of rakk-ale out of his storage deck and drank to her.

"Yeah, that was pretty amazing," agreed Axton from his collapsed position hugging the ground. "I'm sorry I ever doubted you."

Almost fully healed, Gaige leaped into the air and cheered. "Haha, Jack doesn't stand a chance with you on our side!"

The vault hunters continued with the praise and Angel came back on the ECHOcomm looking pretty embarrassed by all the compliments.

"I-I'm glad I could help."

"You didn't just help, Angel," said Roland as he ordered some buzzards to come pick them up. "You saved our lives. Thank you."

"Gracias!"

"_Thank you_"

The vault hunters all thanked Angel for saving them. Angel gave a weak smile and avoided their eyes. "You're welcome."

* * *

It was really early in the morning, but Pierces Station was already full. The Crimson raiders packed inside of the station shouted and cheered as Roland, Lillith, and the vault hunters teleported in. The gathered crowd clamored around the group, and against a flustered Roland's orders, refused to let the heroes walk to HQ, instead, they carried the vault hunters up on shoulders to the HQ.

The crowd begrudgingly dispersed once Roland vowed a celebratory party would be held at Moxxi's bar soon, but that for now the vault hunters were to be left alone.

Roland closed the door to HQ and turned around to face the exhausted vault hunters, sitting in random chairs or collapsed on the ground.

Roland took out the little data module they'd found. There'd been no vault key, but according to Angel the thin data stick they had found on Wilhelm's body should contain the whereabouts of the key. All that was left to do was plug it into the command console and have it find where the key was hidden.

The door opened again and Claptrap rolled in, causing the vault hunters to groan.

"Hi minions! I heard all about how you guys beat Wilhelm. Congrats!"

"Thanks, Claptrap," said Axton with weary resignation. He wondered if he could ever convince Maya and Roland that they should get rid of the robot; for some mysterious reason the two of them were vehemently against the idea.

Now that the crowd was gone, Tannis came out of the small cupboard she'd hid in and walked up to the group. "Is that the data module, wonderful. Let's plug it into the command center and see what it does. Hopefully it doesn't blow the control tower up and doom us all to death by orbital bombardment, because it's the only thing controlling the turrets and shields that keep us safe."

"Uh, yeah. Thanks for the explanation Tannis." Roland led the vault hunters to the back of the HQ, where a large obelisk stood with wires hooked up into ports all over its body.

"Wait, guys." Gaige stopped, causing the other vault hunters to pause and look back at her.

"What's wrong?" asked Roland, holding the data module up to the port on the obelisk.

Common sense and a lifetime of being computer savvy led to Gaige thinking it probably wasn't the best idea to plug an unknown data module into a console that was vital to their survival. "Um, don't you guys think it's a bad idea to just plug something in when we don't know anything about it? I mean it could be dangerous."

"Yeah, that's how you catch STdee-" Salvador stopped before he finished thanks to the death grip Maya now had on his shoulder.

With the attention on Gaige, Tannis remembered the message she was supposed to deliver.

"Oh by the way Gaige, some people stopped by while you were away. They shouted through the cupboard door at me, asking where you were. It was quite terrifying."

"Huh? Who were they?"

"Oh just your father and mother, and two friends. They said one of them was injured so they'll wait for you over at Dr. Ze-"

Gaige ran away without waiting for Tannis to finish. "Sorry guys, I'll be back soon."

Roland sighed and stepped back from the obelisk. He inspected the data module, turning it over and over in his hand. "She's right. We shouldn't just plug it in without taking some precautions."

Angel came on the ECHOcomm. "I understand your concern, but this is the only way to find out where the vault key is. You have to-"

But Claptrap rolled over from the door where he'd stayed and interrupted.

"Rolank, whatcha doing pal? Oohhh is that a Hyperion data module?" Claptrap waved for Roland's attention, and surprisingly got it for once.

Remembering Claptrap's Hyperion origin, Roland asked, "Claptrap, can you analyze this." He held the thin stick out to the robot.

"Can I!" Claptrap snatched the module out of Roland's hand and shoved it into the port in its chest. "Hmm, looks like it's going to take a while. Just sit tight minions while _I_ do all the work."

* * *

"You're such a wimp Cable." Abri sighed and shook her head as Cable struggled against the restraints that tied him to the operating table. "Just let the doctor do his job."

"But I'm not sick! It was just a sprained ankle," protested Cable and looked on in terror as Dr. Zed took out a sharp knife from his tool box behind Abri. "This man is not a doctor! I demand to see his medical license."

"Relax son. And don't struggle so much, you'll only make your, uh, multiple scissorosis worse." Dr. Zed walked over and showed Cable a badly photoshopped card. "See? I am a real doctor."

The card read: "Dr. ZED, PHD and MD in DOCTORING"

Cable struggled harder against the restraints. "Help! Somebody save me!"

Just then the door was kicked open and Gaige rushed in. She shouted in surprise, "Cable? What are you doing here? … And Abri? What the hell?"

Cable cried in relief. "Gaige? Help, this psycho's trying to kil-."

Dr. Zed pounded his fist onto Cable's chest, knocking the wind out of the boy. "Oh, uh there you go son, I cleared up the blockage, you're cured now. Congrats. That'll be five hundred credits."

Gaige untied Cable, who immediately jumped to her side and hid behind her from Abri and Dr. Zed.

"Gaige," said Abri coldly.

"Abri," replied Gaige equally coldly, noticing the knife in the girl's hand.

"Miss, you shouldn't play with that," said Dr. Zed, his request falling on deaf ears. "…well, I guess it's time for a coffee break." Dr. Zed excused himself and walked out of the clinic.

Gaige pulled out the pistol from its holster on her leg and held it pointed at the ground. "What do you want Abri."

Abri sighed and dropped the knife on the operating table. "Nothing. I hope you're happy Gaige, everyone in our community is dead thanks to you."

Gaige felt a stabbing pain hit her far worse than if Abri had actually stabbed her with the knife. "Wha-what do you mean everyone's dead?"

"You didn't get my message?" Cable pulled up the video he'd recorded on his ECHO device.

"Sorry, I've been getting a lot of fanmail." Gaige leaned over and watched the video on Cable's holoscreen.

Gaige watched guiltily what appeared to be Marcie's funeral. Then a moment later with rage as the police bots began massacring the attendees. And finally with relief when her father showed up and saved Cable and Abri.

"Is he here? Dad! Mom!" Gaige looked around hopefully.

"My whole family died! All those people died and all you care about is your parents?" shouted Abri. "You're such an asshole!"

Cable closed the video and glared back at Abri. "It's not her fault, she-"

"I'm sorry Abri."

Cable turned to see Gaige with her head down. "Gaige, you don't need to apologize it wasn't your fault."

Gaige violently shook her head. "No, it is my fault! If I didn't taunt Jack so much he probably would've left you guys alone, I'm sorry… I'm sorry."

Abri turned away with arms folded.

With Gaige still looking down, Cable was the only one who saw Abri wipe her face with her arm. Was it possible she was crying? Cable was at a loss for words; he felt guilty now for not feeling sadder at the death of his parents. Did that make him a sociopath?

"So… you're going to help me get revenge, right?" Abri cautiously glanced over at Gaige.

Gaige looked up; shock was written all over her face. "Abri, you mean-"

Abri turned back around. "I'm not saying I forgive you!" She uncrossed and crossed her arms again, not sure what to do with them. "But, I mean, it's not all your fault. I guess…" she mumbled.

Gaige leaped over the operating table and hugged her.

"Wh-what are you doing!" shouted Abri, her face turning red. "Stop- stop it."

Gaige laughed and squeezed her even tighter. "Jack is so gonna pay, I'll make sure of it!"

"Y-yeah, thanks."

Cable sighed in relief. If a fight had broken out between Gaige and Abri and he had to pick sides, he'd have been screwed. He pulled out the addresses Gaige's dad and mom had given him and sent them to Gaige's ECHO device.

"You're dad and mom went ahead to this place called the Eridium Blight, but they told me to give you their ECHO address so you can contact them." Cable then showed himself out of the clinic. He was beginning to feel left out; Suddenly it seemed Gaige was closer to Abri than him, oh well.

Cable jumped when he saw Dr. Zed, who was standing right outside the clinic leaning against the wall, a steaming cup of coffee in his latex gloved right hand.

"Heh heh, all's well that ends well, amiright son?"

"Huh? Yeah, I suppose."

"But you still owe me five hundred credits."

"What!"

Screams and shouts of confusion down the opposite street distracted Cable for a second. Cable looked back at Dr. Zed for an explanation and saw the man had dropped his coffee.

"We need to get underground, now." Dr. Zed grabbed Cable by the wrist and hauled the boy away from the clinic.

Gaige and Abri rushed out and saw the two of them leaving.

"Dr. Zed, what's going on?" hollered Gaige, trying to talk over the panicked shouts and screams that suddenly filled Sanctuary.

"The damn shield is down!" Dr. Zed pointed at the sky. It wasn't very noticeable, but the citizens of Sanctuary had become experts in discerning the difference. "Follow me if you wanna stay alive!"

"Go with him Abri," said Gaige and ran off, back towards the Crimson Raiders HQ. "Stay safe!"

"You too," whispered Abri, and without a second glance back in Gaige's direction, ran after Dr. Zed and Cable.

* * *

"Aaaannnddd Analyzed!" Claptrap pulled the data stick out of its chest and waved the thing triumphantly in the air.

Roland jumped to his feet from the nearby chair and walked over to the robot next to the obelisk. "What can you tell us about it Claptrap."

"Well, I can tell you we'd have been screwed if you used it." Claptrap disapprovingly wagged the data stick at Roland. "Seriously guys, this thing is full of viruses, you would've given Hyperion control of all our stuff! It's a good thing I saved the day, what would you guys do without me."

Roland sighed with relief and allowed Claptrap to continue lecturing them. The robot deserved at least this much of a reward. That was a close one.

Claptrap tapped the data stick against the obelisk. "Am I getting through to you Rolank? Don't put the data module, I repeat, don't put this stick, in this port. In this hole. You see this? Don't put it in there, like this."

Roland watched as if in slow motion Claptrap push the data module closer to the port.

"Just kidding! Oh minion, I can't believe you fell for that. How stuuupid do you think I am?" Claptrap laughed as Roland contemplated how best to tie the little robot to a rocket headed for the sun.

Another message from Angel came over the ECHOnet. She sighed, then said sadly, "I'm sorry everyone."

"It's fine," said Axton from beside Roland. "We all make mistakes, heck we were pretty eager to just plug it in too."

Angel shook her head and bit her lips. It was the first time any of the vault hunters had seen her so distressed. Roland was reminded of the expression and tone of voice Angel had used when the Vault had been opened, and it was revealed she'd tricked them into doing it so that they could kill the monster that would appear.

As if struck by lightning, Roland froze and only his eyeballs could move. He looked down at Claptrap, standing by the obelisk, with the data stick held next to the port. Claptrap, CL4P-TP steward bot, made by Hyperion. Hyperion robot. Hyperion.

The realization came too late.

Roland heard Angel say, "Executing phase-shift."

Claptrap's eye turned red.

He lifted his leg to kick the robot away.

The robot inserted the data module into the obelisk.

Roland's right foot finally made contact with Claptrap, sending the robot flying into the hallway, where it landed and lay motionless.

"Oh no," murmured Roland.

"Oh yes!" blared Handsome Jack's voice over every loudspeaker in the city.

"You know, I think it's finally time I let you in on a little secret," taunted Jack. "Angel's working for me."

Mordecai came on over the ECHOcomm. "Roland, the turrets, fast travel, everything's down man, we're evacuating Tundra Express. What's going on?"

Roland and the vault hunters rushed out of the HQ and saw there was no longer an energy shield above them. Desperate soldiers besieged Roland's ECHOcomm, asking for orders and support as the city began to panic. Roland turned to Lillith and the vault hunters.

"Lillith, you know what to do," barked Roland, then turning to the vault hunters he said, "Go and grab as much Eridium as you can from the safe upstairs and bring it to her in the middle of the town square. Move it soldier!"

The vault hunters ran off to obey their orders as Roland answered Mordecai and then got in touch with Scooter over the ECHOcomm. The first moonshot landed on the edge of the city, but the blast and furious wind still knocked Roland to the ground.

"Shield's down, Roland! Oh, man, somebody start getting everybody underground," shouted Scooter over the ECHOcomm.

"Calm down soldier!" Roland got back on his feet and rushed to the back of the HQ where the obelisk was. On the nearby table, in a glass housing, was a big red button wired to the obelisk. Roland smashed his fist through the glass, punching the button. He prayed it would still work.

The deep rumbling of mechanical movements outside of HQ confirmed his hopes and Roland rushed upstairs to help the other vault hunters carry Eridium.

"Scooter, I need you to cycle the ignition primers."

"Pretty sure we can't do that without killing like, everyone in the city. It ain't ready to fly, Roland!"

"Damn it that's an order Scooter!" Roland and the vault hunters rushed out of HQ, each with a pile of Eridium in their arms.

"A flying city? I'd be amazed if I wasn't so busy trying to stay alive," shouted Axton as he ran beside Roland towards Lillith, who with arms outspread, was pouring some kind of energy into the large metal tower that had emerged from the ground.

The vault hunters dropped the Eridium at her feet, and Lillith grunted her thanks. Axton noticed now the two words etched into the side of the tower; Sanctuary, and Dahl.

"Sanctuary? It can't be!" Axton recalled hearing about Dahl corporation's finest mining ship, The Sanctuary, and how it'd been lost on Pandora. He couldn't believe he hadn't made the connection until now. They'd turned the ship into a fortress, and now it was going to fly again.

Roland rushed towards Pierces station to help with the evacuation, and ordered the other vault hunters to stay near Lillith as backup.

The vault hunters watched bitterly as another moonshot impacted the city, this time on the other edge. Jack was toying with them.

His voice rang all across the city again as he addressed them. "I love the way you vault hunters just up and trusted Angel. Never occured to you that she was working for me, did it? I did the same thing to the last four vault hunters, but I'll be entirely honest - tricking you guys this time? Way funnier."

"Damn it I knew we couldn't trust her. Gaige!" Axton waved at the girl, who was just about to rush into the HQ building.

Gaige ran over to them, and leaned on her knees, completely out of breath. "Guys, what are we going to do?"

"Brace yourselves," warned Lillith, as the pile of Eridium at her feet evaporated. The aura around the siren intensified, blinding the vault hunters even though they'd pulled their hands up to protect their eyes.

Slowly their sight returned, and the vault hunters saw they were no longer in Sanctuary, but on the road leading up to the city. They watched in awe as the city slowly lifted into the air, completely encased now in the pink aura that was emanating from Lillith.

Scooter's ecstatic voice reached them over the ECHOcomm. "Oh man, this is one them moments." The mechanic took a deep breath. "CATCH A RIIIIDE!"

Lillith then came over the ECHOcomm, breathless. "Sorry guys, I never used that much before, get away before Jack notices."

Over Lillith's ECHOcomm, they could hear in the background Jack still taunting them. "That's the best you got? A flying city? What could you chumps POSSIBLY have that makes you think you've got a chance against me?"

"A siren," answered Roland.

"Sup," said Lillith, channeling all of her anger into the word.

The city blinked out of existence, teleporting somewhere else.

The vault hunters stood rooted to the spot. Axton was the first to turn and count if anyone was missing. Seeing the other five were safe and nobody was missing body parts, he shouted, "Alright guys let's move, we need to figure out a way back to Sanc-"

Angel came on the ECHOcomm. "I know you're angry at me right now, but we don't have a lot of time. I'll explain everythi-"

Axton snarled into his mic, "Don't you ever contact us again you Hyperion piece of sh-"

Maya interrupted Axton. "Wait, let's… listen. I hate her as much as you but, if she's already found us we're at the mercy of Hyperion anyways."

"Th-thank you, Maya," Angel gave a small smile.

Maya didn't bother replying.

Angel took a deep breath and said, "You have no reason to trust me. I get that. But if you're going to stop Jack from controlling the Warrior, you'll need my help. Because I know where the key is. It's with me. And I'm the only reason Jack's moonbase is disabled right now. Without me, his lunar bombardments would have torn the resistance to shreds."

Axton and the other vault hunters began listening a little more intently.

"So if you had this kind of power why didn't you just stop Jack earlier?" asked Gaige impatiently.

"I couldn't, I'm sorry. I had to wait for them to be distracted, in this case busy attacking the Crimson Raiders, so that they wouldn't notice me infiltrating their system, I wish there had been an alternative, but, I'm sorry this was the only way I could stop him."

The vault hunters looked at each other, seeing what the others thought about what Angel had to say.

"You're not an AI, are you, Angel," Maya asked.

"…No, I'm a siren. And Jack's using me to charge the key."

Those words seemed to convince Maya because then she said, "Alright, how can we stop Jack, Angel."

Axton sighed and shrugged. "I still don't trust you, but for now I'll play along, nothing else we can do since you're the one keeping us from being blown to bits. Supposedly."

The vault hunters agreed to help Angel. Tears welled in Angel's eyes, and for the first time the vault hunters saw something other than her face as Angel wiped the tears away with her hands, revealing two heavily tattooed arms like that of a siren's. "Thank you, thank you so much for believing me."

"Yeah, yeah, what's our next step Angel?" Axton checked his assault rifle for damage. "Show us the way."

Angel beamed a smile at them; a genuine smile; one unburdened by regret or guilt. Looking at her smiling face, Axton thought she seemed… almost angelic.

* * *

"BLAKE!" Handsome Jack tossed his office chair at the Giant holoscreen in his office. The chair passed through and slammed into the wall behind the screen. The vault symbol flickered on the screen, and continued to mock Jack with its existence. "BLAKE!"

The office door slid open and Blake stepped calmly into the office. He looked over at Jack, who was wild eyed and disheveled almost beyond recognition.

"Turn the damn holoscreen off, shut it off!" ordered Jack, slowly regaining his composure.

"We can't," responded Blake tersely. "A siren has taken over our moonbase."

"Well then take back control idiot! I want control of this base now, RIGHT NOW!"

Blake breathed out, almost letting a sigh escape his lips. That was close. "We've salvaged the communication system, the life support system, and also the Loader deployment system. The others are proving… problematic."

"Then bring in the fleet, I want the surface wiped of bandit scum by tomorrow morning."

"Unfortunately, it appears the siren is using some of the moonbase's antennas to broadcast a takeover signal to all Hyperion ships. Any Hyperion vessel that enters this sector will suffer the same fate as us. We theorize any attempt to bombard the surface will also be countered by the many defensive countermeasures the moonbase is capable of launching."

"Get out of my office," muttered Jack.

Blake obliged, but at the door he heard Jack say, "Blake, hire a team of the best bounty hunters in the universe. I want those two siren vault hunting pieces of shit nailed to a cross and burned to a crisp and I don't care how much it costs."

"…Very well." Blake stepped out of the president's office and the door slid close behind him.

On the wall to the right of the office door, there was another glitched holoscreen that used to be a portrait of Jack. As Blake walked past it in the empty hallway, the vault symbol on the holoscreen was replaced by an image of Angel's face.

"Thank you, Blake."

"Hm? I told him the truth. A siren has taken over the moonbase. That is all."

Blake walked on.

"Don't worry, you'll get what you want," called the holoscreen after Blake, as the Angel's face faded back into the vault symbol.

"I know I will," Blake said with a smirk.


	14. Chapter 14: A Short Meeting

**Author's Note: Hey guys, just a quick update, ah I've wanted to write this chapter for a while, it was one of the ideas that inspired me to start this fanfic actually! Leave a review and let me know what you think thanks.**

Six holograms blinked into existence inside the dark office. Jack swiveled his chair around to greet his guests.

"I'll keep this short. I want these people dead."

Pictures of the vault hunters came up on a giant holoscreen that appeared between Jack's desk and the six bounty hunters.

Through the semi-transparent holoscreen, Jack studied the bounty hunters; three of them looked the part of professionals, but there was also a little boy, a pink haired teenage girl wearing a hoodie and jeans, and a fully armored samurai. Jack clicked his tongue. Damn it Blake.

"S-sirens?" said the soldier in the very back. Though his face was hidden by his helmet, it was obvious from the way he hugged his body that he was nervous, and also a coward.

"Is there a problem? You guys are the best bounty hunters in the universe, right? Bring me their heads and I'll pay you six milli-" Jack jumped up and smacked his desk with both hands, causing the soldier in the back and the teenage girl to flinch. The other four, who had not been paying attention, glanced at Jack from their various distractions.

"Yeah yeah, kill these people, pay is this much, blah blah blah, same old same old," said the annoyed boy, and handed his Zintendo 4DS over to the two robotic arms that had sprouted out of his backpack. "Can I go now? I've got better things to do than hang around with you idiots, I feel my IQ dropping already."

Jack bared his teeth, smiling like an animal displaying its fangs. Maybe Blake hadn't messed up after all.

"Six million isn't worth my time," yawned the blonde man in the muscle clinging spacesuit. "You might've gotten away with offering six million to those savages on Pandora, but you didn't really think you'd fool us did you?" He chuckled and resumed admiring his own face in a hand mirror. Then he winked at the mirror and declared, "Next time, on Jake the Space Bounty Hunter: Jake takes on the savage planet of Pandora. Will our handsome hero be able to save the day and bring the bandits to justice? Of course he will, but stay tuned to find out how!"

"You'll pay us the actual amount," said the man wearing sunglasses and a suit standing next to the nervous soldier. He then pulled up on his own holoscreen the intergalactic wanted posters:

_Axton – Five billion credits. Wanted for: War Crimes._

_Maya – Seven hundred twenty billion credits. Wanted for: Siren. _

_Zero – Thirty two billion credits. Wanted for: Political Assassination._

_Gaige – Eight hundred twenty billion credits. Wanted for: Illegal Experimentation and Excessive Adorability._

_Krieg – One hundred billion credits. Wanted for: Property of Hyperion._

_Salvador – Ninety nine billion and point ninety nine credits Wanted for: Manslaughter, Theft, Arson, Destruction of Property, Trespassing, Cannibalism, Public Indecency, and Profanity.* _

"Fine, I'll pay the full amount." Jack sighed and sat back down. This was all Blake's fault; he made a mental note to chew the idiot out later. Then he thought about the vault hunters dying and cheered up. "I want them all dead by the end of the week."

The pink haired teenager, all fired up, turned to the other bounty hunters.

"Let's work together guys," she cheerfully suggested. "They don't stand a chance against the power of our teamwork!"

The boy stared up at her with a blank expression on his face. Slowly it turned into a smile.

"Hah, work together?" The boy snickered. "You're dumber than you look if you think I'm splitting the reward with any of you idiots."

Jake nodded at his reflection in the hand mirror. "Sorry, but that would hurt my show's ratings, and I don't like sidekicks."

The other three bounty hunters said nothing.

The girl put her hands in the pocket of her pink hoodie and moped. "But, but the power of teamwork and friendship," she mumbled.

"Can you cut that out?" said the boy with a sneer. "You're creeping me out more than the samurai." He pointed at the silent samurai in the corner of the room.

The samurai was wearing a demon mask plus a traditional samurai's helmet. No one could tell if he was paying attention.

"…" The samurai's hologram shut off.

"Oh, I get it," The girl's countenance brightened again and she crouched down to the boy's level. "In a team there's always a character that acts mean but is secretly nice. Haha you almost fooled me, you jerk with a heart of gold!" She grinned at him.

The boy stepped back, a look of disgust on his face. "Bug off." With those words, his hologram too disappeared.

One by one the others left as well. The girl gave a depressed sigh as she stood up and brushed off her jeans.

"Hey kid, get out of my office."

Surprised by Jack's voice, the girl jumped around to face the irritated president. "S-sorry!"

The girl saluted Jack and said confidently, "Don't worry sir, with us on the job, the bad guys don't stand a cha-" Jack turned off the hologram for her.

Jack stretched out his feet on his desk. Then, after considering it for a minute, he gave his ECHOcomm a verbal command.

"ECHOcomm, call Zero."

* * *

*The wanted poster details were taken from official sources, credit goes to them.


	15. Chapter 15: Catch A Ride

**Author's Note: Hey all, been a while. I hope you like the new chapter, leave a review if you can, I'd greatly appreciate it! Also, I'm going to try and update a little more often, I'm hoping once a week is doable, we shall see.**

The vault hunters hurried into the cave-like digistruct garage, escaping from the freezing wind that blew across the road outside.

Axton brushed the dust off of a rusty terminal computer in the back, causing the holoscreen to blink to life. He examined the ancient Dahl mining vehicle dispenser skeptically: Dahl's mining operation abandoned Pandora long ago, and the dented and scratched terminal clearly showed that the bandits had given up on getting anything out of the terminal long ago too.

But when Axton touched the blank holoscreen, the Dahl logo briefly flashed up before being replaced by a caricature of Scooter's face and the words "Catch-A-Ride".

"Scooter, are you sure this is going to work?" asked Axton, recalling the monstrosity Gaige had created when she "fixed" one of Pandora's decrepit machines.

"Well heck you ain't walking to Lynchwood, that's all the way in The Dust man," said Scooter over the ECHOcomm. "I still don't think you guys should be trustin that angel lady but if you gon get to Lynchwood you gonna need to catch a riiidddee."

Over a different channel, Roland came on the ECHOcomm. "Don't worry, we've tested the system before. Scooter may be short a few chromosomes, but he's a savant when it comes to vehicles. More importantly, are you sure you guys want to do this. I don't trust Angel is an understatement for how I feel right now."

Axton sighed and thought back on what Angel had told them.

"_Before you rescue me and take the key, there are some things that need to be done," Angel had explained calmly. "First, go to Lynchwood and destroy their Eridium mining operation; it's the biggest operation on this continent, destroying it now will slow down the charging of the key by …about thirty percent."_

"_Anything we need to watch out for?" asked Maya._

"_Becareful of Nisha, Handsome Jack's girlfriend. She's also Lycnhwood's sheriff. Also, um, make sure you get rid of her. She's been ruling the people of Lynchwood with an iron fist. Once she's gone, I'm sure the townspeople can help the resistance somehow."_

"Yeah, we're sure," answered Axton. He'd stayed in Lynchwood awhile and even caught a few bounties for the desert town. He remembered sensing an inescapable gloominess hanging over the citizens like another corpse on the gallows that were everywhere; with the sheriff gone, maybe the town could change for the better.

"We don't have a choice anyways, Angel's in charge."

"Then good luck soldier," said Roland. "We're tied up trying to regroup, but once things settle down I'll see if I can send some reinforcements your way."

"Thanks, how're things going on your end?"

"A little better, we've got most of our defenses back up thanks to Gaige's friend."

"Woohoo," interjected Gaige cheerfully, joining the ECHOchat. "Can't beat Cable when it comes to software, and you can't beat me when it comes to hardware. We gotcha guys covered."

"Gaige, help me," cried Cable as he hopped on the channel as well. "How do I turn this claptrap thing off? It won't leave me alone!"

"Minions!" chimed in Claptrap.

The rest of them disconnected.

Axton turned his attention back to the holoscreen terminal. His eyes widened as he explored the options on the Catch-A-Ride station menu. "Holy hell, you're not messing with us are you Scooter?"

"Heh heh, who do you think I am sonnn," boasted Scooter. "When I say catch a ride I mean Catch-A-Ride!"

Axton pressed a button on the holoscreen and turned to the others with a grin on his face.

"Oi what'd you get amigo?" asked Salvador. "Whatever it is, dibs on shotgun."

"Dibs on-" Gaige groaned when Salvador beat her to it. "Then I call dibs on an indoor seat, it's getting kinda cold…" She rubbed her hands together and shivered in her tattered school uniform. "I'd kill for some new clothes…"

"Yeah I take mine from dead bandits too," Salvador took a blood stained yellow shirt out of his storage deck unit and showed it off.

"…nevermind."

The vault hunters stepped back to the corner of the garage and watched as digistruct particles began pouring out of the projector lenses on the ceiling. Slowly, a large vehicle took shape in the middle of the garage, filling almost the entire cave.

"Oh ho ho muy bueno amigo," declared Salvador as the vehicle took on its final shape.

"Uh, what counts as shotgun?" asked Gaige, as she stared agape at the vehicle.

"You know what counts as shotgun chica!"

* * *

Dry, hot wind and sand blasted the truck's windshield as the car went over the sand dune. Through the open window, some of the sand flew in and hit Gaige in the face.

"Ack, pfffbbt." Gaige squeezed her eyes shut and tried to blow the sand out of her mouth.

Still driving, Maya reached down with her right hand and took a bottle of water out of her storage deck unit and offered it to Gaige on her right.

"than' yu," gurgled Gaige as she swished the water back and forth in her mouth. She spat the water out the window, and noticed the bandit truck fast approaching them from the right.

The bandit truck, equipped with a catapult turret, launched a barrel at them. Gaige pulled out her pistol and aimed up at the falling barrel. She steadied her aim as best she could as their truck bounced across the desert sand. At the last second, she pulled the trigger, and the barrel exploded mid-air.

"Nice shot," said Maya, still focused on driving, while a small GPS holoscreen continued to track their progress on the windshield.

"Salvador," called Gaige over the ECHOcomm. "They're on our righ-"

Before she finished, the bandit's truck exploded into bits of twisted metal and burnt flesh. The leftover chassis, sent airborne by the explosion, landed upside down and the one surviving wheel spun helplessly above the flaming wreckage.

Salvador's mad laughter reached Gaige over the ECHOcomm. She leaned out of the truck window and looked behind them. She stared, with pouted lips and jealous eyes, at the massive tank.

Sitting in the back of the truck, Zero and Krieg were staring at the tank too as it rolled down the dune and caught up to them. The turret top kept turning, swinging the twin cannons back and forth, raising up a dust storm only a little smaller than the one that followed in the war machine's wake.

The tank turret turned to face a buzzard stupid enough to threaten them. The two missle pods on the side of the turret fired off a salvo, blowing the buzzard out of the sky, sending Salvador into another incoherent rant filled with gibberish, cursing, and truxican words.

"Guys I think he's gone insane." Gaige pulled her head back into the truck.

"I can't blame him, I'm kinda jealous," confessed Maya with a smile. She hit the gas to stay clear of the sandstorm the tank tossed up. "Look, we're almost there." She pointed at the GPS holoscreen; a little goal flag blinked ahead of the truck icon.

A steep hill ending on a wide cliff lay straight ahead though and there was no way around. Angel came on and explained, "Lynchwood is below in the canyon, you'll have to get there on foot or take the local rail system I'm afraid."

"I've got a better idea." Maya kept her foot on the gas pedal. "Hang on tight guys," she shouted, and stomped the boost pedal down.

The engine roared in response as fire blew out of the exhaust ports. The truck accelerated up the hill, pushing Maya and Gaige into their seats while Zero and Krieg tightened their grips on the railings in the back of the truck.

"I WANT OFF MR. BONE'S WILD RIDE," shouted Krieg as the truck drove off the cliff and flew across the chasm.

Like on a rollercoaster back on Eden-5, Gaige put her hands up and screamed with her eyes closed as the truck began to fall and their stomachs lifted into their chests.

Thanks to the relatively low terminal velocity, the truck simply landed below with a hard bounce.

Gaige hobbled out of the truck. "Uhhhgh, I think I broke something. So worth it though."

"Maybe that wasn't such a good idea," admitted Maya sheepishly, but with cheeks still flushed from the thrill. "Sorry."

The vault hunters had landed on the outskirts of Lynchwood. Already, a crowd was forming; a mixture of bandits, mercenaries and townsfolk stared at the strange newcomers that'd fallen out of the sky.

"That's the vault hunters," shouted someone within the crowd.

"The bounty's mine," shouted some other people.

But before shots could be fired, the tank landed behind the truck. The menacing crowd quickly dispersed.

A loudspeaker on a nearby gallows turned on.

"I like your style kid," said the cool, feminine voice. "I'm Nisha, the sheriff around these parts. If you're looking for a fight, you came to the right place, sunset, main street, see you there."

The hatch to the tank opened and Salvador climbed out. He wiped the foam from his mouth as he and Axton walked over to join the other vault hunters.

"Looks like we've got a date tonight guys," said Axton. He looked up at the early morning sun. "Got a long time til sunset though, what do you guys want to do?"

"I'm going to go find some new clothes," declared Gaige eagerly, she summoned Deathtrap and ran off into the town with the robot in tow.

An idea came to Axton, and after setting up his turret to protect their vehicles, he happily asked the others, "Well, now that the minor's gone, anyone want to check out the best Saloon in Lynchwood with me?"

"How do you know it's the best?" asked Maya, though they were already following Axton.

"I'm glad you asked," said Axton; he'd eagerly anticipated the question. "I did some bounty hunting here. This one time, I caught these two brothers who were…"

Maya, Salvador and Krieg humored the commando, and even joined in with their own make-believe accomplishments.

But Zero lagged behind the group, keeping out of their boisterous conversation. Instead, as he walked, the assassin quietly spoke with someone over the ECHOcomm.

"Hey assassin, I'll pay you to kill the other vault hunters for me."

"_No._" Zero looked away from the other vault hunters' exposed backs.

"Huh, why not? You scared of a little challenge? Isn't that your only goal in life anyways? Heh, looks like you've gone soft. Welp, whatever, I've hired _real_ assassins to do the job anyways, enjoy your last week alive, weakling."

"…_they are not a challenge._"

"Yeah? Whatever helps you sleep at night kiddo."

"…"


	16. Chapter 16: Vampires and puppies

**Author's Note: Hey all, guess one a week is a little much lol. I did kind of goof off this last week though so hopefully the next chapter won't take as long. Also part of the reason was that I went back and revised almost all the earlier chapters! Not much changed storywise, just grammar and wording mostly though if you read chapter 8 again there's some more funny stuff. **

**Also, if you have questions, please ask me through a fanfiction account, it makes it much easier to reply than having to answer guest questions here:**

**Q1: Are you doing the dlcs? / I'm definitely doing crater, and tina, not sure about the others, probably some of the headhunters as well.**

**Q2: More accurate retelling? / Sorry :( but part of the appeal for me is getting to rewrite the BL2 story my way, so I'm afraid that's not a request I can comply with, though I'll try to be more careful with canon errors.**

**Q3: More intermissions? / Yes :)**

**Also, I just want to make it clear that the six bounty hunters I introduced weren't supposed to be characters from other series or games etc. Yeah, those archetypes get used in a lot of other media too and they've been around for a while so they'll resemble other characters in some respects, but they're not supposed to be those characters, they're OC. Anyways, I hope you like this chapter, read and review!**

The hologram floating above the Quick Change booth read "_Occupied"_, and the high pitched whines of busy digistruct printers could be heard inside.

Across the street, a drunk scavenger stumbled out of a saloon and fell his way over to the booth. He waited for a couple minutes in a drunken stupor, before realizing he was wasting his time. Then he pounded on the door. "Hurry up dammit. What the hell's taking so long."

The booth being occupied annoyed him almost as much as his beer soaked clothes, or the fact that more of his last drink had ended up on his pants than in his gut, and he took his frustration out on the door. After a dozen more knocks and curses, the door slid open and a high school girl stepped out. The scavenger rubbed his eyes and shook his head, maybe he had too much to drink after all. The man took a second look with his swimmy vision and to his delight, the blurry mirage of a highschool girl was still there. He couldn't make out the details but the several drinks he'd had reassured him she was hot.

"Sorry about the wait," said the girl curtly.

He grabbed her left hand as she turned to leave. Neither the cold metallic texture of the hand nor the greyish hue of her blurry arm raised any flags in his inebriated mind, and he pulled her back towards him and said, "Hey cutie, ain't you gonna pay me back for making me wai-"

_Snap_

Clutching his broken wrist, the man fell to his knees howling pitifully. "You bitch!" He glared up at the figure before him. Hm, guess he'd been hallucinating after all; the blurry figure now resembled a bulky man; a bulky man that floated and sparkled. But he swore he'd heard a girl's voice.

"What are you supposed to be," he sneered, egged on by booze. "Some kind of pansy vam-"

Getting electrocuted was a literally sobering experience, and the scavenger shouted his apology as he scurried away, his pants now a little wetter.

Gaige watched the man disappear down a side street and sighed with disappointment; it seemed Deathtrap's tesla coils needed a higher voltage, though the unintended side effect the electric shock produced in the scavenger was rather amusing. As she strolled down the street she pondered this age old dilemma of lethality versus hilarity.

As she walked absentmindedly past an alleyway, a girl's voice caught her attention.

"Aww, you poor puppy! How can people be so mean?"

Gaige turned and saw a pink haired girl about her age, kneeling in front of a rough approximation of a doghouse, petting a chained skag pup that was trying its best to die in peace. The little monster was too weak to try biting her hand off, so instead it opened its vertical jaw and let out a weak roar to no avail. The girl disregarded the warning and continued her petting and baby talk.

"You might not want to do that," cautioned Gaige as she walked up behind the naive girl. "Skags are pretty vicious. Let me put it out of its misery." Gaige pulled out her pistol and aimed it at the skag, but the pink haired girl dived in front of the gun and smothered the small skag protectively under her.

"Noooo, you can't kill Bella, I won't let you!" In place of the skag, the girl stared with puppy dog eyes up at Gaige.

"Geeze, you already named it?" Gaige, baffled, put her gun away. Those situations where a child drags home an unexpected pet came to mind; being the parent in the situation, she saw no choice but to play along. "Sooo, er, what're you gonna do with the... puppy." Puppy? This pink haired girl was clearly from a different dimension.

"I'm going to save him!" The girl stood up and dusted off her jeans and pink shirt as best she could, but the dirt smears from the skag refused to fade.

"There's a Quick Change station down the street," said Gaige.

The girl thanked her and said she'd be right back.

Gaige turned her attention back to the half-dead skag, and thought about which was crueler; killing it, or forcing it to live when from its condition she could tell the real owner was a thug.

Unexpectedly, Scooter came on her ECHOcomm. "Aw, that little feller looks wounded – I'd usually recommend bussin' a cap in his cooch-mouth, but he seems nice enough – you could get him some medicine so he stops makin' that sad-ass noise, though."

"Uh, Scooter, have you been watching me this whole time." Gaige shuddered, recalling she just changed. Feeling self conscious, she gripped the sides of her new bulletproof skirt tightly.

"Huh? Um, no... hey side question, did you know I can see you in the bathroom? Wait, was that weird? I meant it like a spying on you in the bathroom out of friendship thing-"

In the background of Scooter's ECHOcomm, Gaige heard someone kicking in a door. Then she heard Lillith shouting, "Damn it Scooter I warned you, come here!"

"No Lily - please! Ow! Aw aw please don't AIEEEeeee-" Scooter disconnected.

Gaige shook what just happened out of her mind; she'll deal with it once she gets back to Sanctuary, if there was anything left of Scooter. She was busy changing the settings on her ECHO's tactical video feed when the pink haired girl returned, carrying a variety of roasted skag parts on sticks, though Gaige doubted the girl knew they were skag meat.

"Eat up Bella," said the girl cheerfully as she dumped the food in front of the skag.

Bella ignored the charred body parts of his bretherens, his hunger strike won't be ended that easily. The girl crouched down with a sad look on her face. "You poor thing, you're so weak you can't even eat anymore."

"I don't think that's-"

The pink haired girl pried open the skag's vertical jaw and shoved some meat into the resisting skag. For the first time, Gaige felt something akin to pity for a creature of Pandora.

"Don't worry Bella, I'll feed you until you get better," said the girl between sniffles and pushed more food into the skag's mouth while intermittently wiping her tears away. At first Bella struggled, flailing its little legs in the air, but eventually its body went limp and the only movement left was of its jaws working as the pink haired girl pushed them to make the skag chew.

Satisfied with the result, the girl stood back up and turned to Gaige. Gaige backed up a little, though she didn't know why.

"Thanks for the help," said the girl cheerfully and extended her right hand. "I'm Polly, nice to meet'cha."

"Uh, I'm Gaige." Gaige shook Polly's hand. "Nice to meet you too." Funny, she didn't recall becoming the girl's accomplice; she still thought of herself more as an innocent bystander, caught up in a tragic accident.

Polly leaned forward and curiously studied Gaige's face. "Hmm, have we met? The name sounds kinda familiar too..."

Reminded of the price on her head, Gaige gave a nervous laugh, "Haha, nope, I'm just another normal law abiding Pandora citizen. The robot too." But the girl was completely unarmed, and Gaige relaxed after taking another step back towards Deathtrap. She changed the subject, "So what brings you to Pandora Polly? No offense but I can tell you're new here, I mean, you're not even carrying a gun."

Polly was about to answer her when Bella the skag started whimpering loudly behind her. Polly dropped to her knees and with brows furrowed in concern watched the skag twitch. "Oh no, Bella what's wrong. Bella!"

"Uh, he probably needs some medicine," said Gaige, trusting Scooter's diagnosis; he was a Pandora native after all. And after what Polly just did, the poor skag probably needed some anyways.

"But this town doesn't have a vet." Polly desperately pounded the skag in the chest, making a mockery of proper CPR procedures.

"C-calm down! Look, I know a doctor, let me call him and ask." Gaige called Dr. Zed.

"Dr. Zed here - agree to donate your organs say what."

"What? I mean no! Dr. Zed!"

"Just pulling your legs girl. Heh, how can I help?"

"I need some medicine for an injured skag. Weird, I know."

"A hurt skag? Why I know just the thing."

"You do? Great, wha-"

"A dose of buckshot to its face oughta do the trick, if that don't work just repeat the dosage til you're satisfied." Gaige hanged up.

Dr. Zed called her back, "Phew, got it all out of my system now, thanks. Well, if you really want to treat a skag, you should go find Dr. Mercy. He runs the clinic in Lynchwood, he ought to have something for skags, seeing as how he owns a few skag fighting rings."

"Thanks Dr. Zed," said Gaige wearily.

"You're welcome." Dr. Zed then added bitterly, "Don't tell him I sent you though, Me and him haven't gotten along since he became all hoity toity after gettin' a real medical license."

"Yeeah... sure."

As soon as Gaige delivered the good news to Polly, the girl ran out of the alleyway, dragging Gaige behind her as she headed for Dr. Mercy's clinic.

* * *

"Five thousand credits," Dr. Mercy put the small red med-hypo on the counter.

"Oh come on, that's ridiculous." Gaige glared at the chubby doctor. "This is extortion, I'm not-"

"Here you go." Polly slapped a stack of one hundred credit bills on the table and took the medicine. Before Gaige could complain, Polly ran out of the clinic, dragging her along.

Polly checked her shiny wristwatch. "I hope Bella's alright, we've been gone for a bit. That clinic was pretty hard to find huh?"

"That's because you wouldn't stop running to ask for directions! And you just paid five thousand credits for skag medicine, are you crazy?"

"It's fine," said Polly with a carefree laugh. "I make a lot as an ally of justice."

"What."

"Well, bounty hunter, but I prefer ally of justice!"

There was no way this girl was a bounty hunter, thought Gaige, as the two of them made their way back to Bella. Polly gave the skag the medicine and after a few seconds the pup recovered enough to stand shakily on its own legs.

With a supremely delighted smile on her face, Polly stood in front of the doghouse, adoring the recovering skag at her feet.

Gaige shook her head, what a ride. She turned to leave to find an annoyed merc standing behind Deathtrap.

"Hey! That's my skag, what the hell you two doing back here?"

Polly stomped up to the man. "You have to take better care of your pets! Bella almost died you know. How could you let a poor little puppy starve like that! If you don't treat your pets kindly..."

Confused, the man looked past the lecturing girl and saw the menacing robot had grown claws, and the other teenage girl was giving him a look that said, "Choose your next words carefully."

"Y-yeah, you're right," he said meekly, not even sure what he was agreeing with. "Sorry, uh, here, you can have the skag." He turned and ran for his life.

Polly nodded with satisfaction. "I'm glad I got through to him with words, otherwise I would've had to teach him a lesson."

"Yup, nice job," said Gaige, and started walking away. But Polly grabbed her arm once more and begged her to help walk the new pet. Gaige sighed and agreed; and felt more sympathy than ever for the skag, which had a whole lifetime of this to look forward to. She should've put it out of its misery when she could've.

Polly kicked off the rusty lock that tied the chain leash to the doghouse, and the skag, having obtained relative freedom, dashed out of the alleyway, pulling the two girls holding his leash. The skag led them through the streets with energetic purpose, and soon the girls found themselves heading towards an abandoned mineshaft past the edge of town.

"I don't know if this is a good idea," said Gaige, and pulled out her pistol just in case.

"Don't worry," said Polly and gave Gaige a confident wink. "If we run into any trouble you just leave it to me."

"Yeah, thanks, that makes me feel much better."

Bella pulled them to the mineshaft elevator and sat down. "I think he wants us to go down," said Polly, and pushed the down button before Gaige could protest.

Gaige holstered her pistol and took out her assault rifle as they slowly descended into a vast, domed cavern lit by old and failing mining lights. "It's a miracle she's managed to survive til now," muttered Gaige to herself.

With a sharp grinding of gears, the elevator came to a stop at the bottom and Bella pulled them towards the center of the cavern. Once there, the skag started yelping, and a deep, rumbling reply came from the dark hole in the cavern wall on the far end.

"You've got to be kidding," said Gaige humorlessly, as a gigantic Skag, the same dark red color as Bella, slowly stepped out of the hole in the wall.

Polly gasped. "Oh, that must be its mother."

Gaige had a feeling Bella wasn't exactly telling its mommy how nice the humans were. She gripped Polly on the shoulder firmly with her left hand, ready to toss the girl out of harm's way.

"Oh no," said Polly. "You don't think they're the type that eats their young do you?" Polly yanked Bella back and the mother roared. Mistaking the hand on her shoulder as a sign of fear, Polly squeezed the hand reassuringly as she lifted it off her shoulder and handed the leash to Gaige. "Don't worry Gaige, I'll protect us."

Morbid curiosity got the better of her, and Gaige watched Polly step bravely up to confront the growling monstrosity. Polly lifted up her right arm and pressed a button on her wristwatch. "Transform!"

"You've got to be kidding!" Gaige shielded her eyes and watched as the wristwatch flashed and digistruct particles rapidly flew out of it, engulfing Polly in blinding white light.

The mother skag roared again and lifted its huge right paw. It swung the paw down at Polly, who blocked it with her arms, stopping the paw above her. The light dissipated to reveal Polly in a battle suit. The design reminded Gaige of Zero's, except it was pink and the helmet was round. With the help of the powersuit, Polly pushed aside the skag's paw and leaped up at its face.

"Justice-Punch!" Gaige cringed at the unoriginal attack name.

The giant skag opened its mouth and swallowed Polly whole. Just as Gaige and Deathtrap ran forward to save the girl, the left half of the skag's face exploded as Polly punched a hole through the jaw and fell messily to the ground.

"Eeewwww!" shrieked Gaige as she sprinted away, narrowly avoiding the rain of skag juice. She remembered hearing from Dr. Zed that skags ate and pooped out of the same hole. And having already experienced what bullymong eyeballs taste, smell, and feel like, she had no interest in repeating the experience with skag slobber.

"Are you alright?" asked Polly as she wiped some of the thick skag drool off her arms. "Just stay there behind that rock, I'll take care of this." Polly turned to face the giant Skag, reeling from the blow she dealt it. She leaped once again at its face.

"Justice-Punch!" Gaige wondered if Polly had a learning disability.

The skag opened its mouth once again, but being smart enough to learn from past mistakes, instead of swallowing Polly, the skag fired off a large blue energy beam at her.

"Huh, I wonder if Sir Hammerlock knows giant skags can use friggin' hyper beam." Gaige recorded the finding as she daydreamed about Sir Hammerlock thanking her for this revolutionary discovery.

Polly crash-landed on the other side of the rock Gaige was hiding behind. "I-I'm okay, just leave it up to me." Polly pushed herself back up as the giant skag crouched, ready to leap at them.

An explosion somewhere above suddenly shook the whole cavern, causing pebbles and boulders to drop from the ceiling, distracting the mother skag.

Polly jumped high into the air. "JUSTICE, KICCKKKKKKKKK!"

The mini-jets on her boots fired, and Polly rocketed feet first into the skag, which exploded into a shower of blood and guts. Gaige mumbled curses as she tried her best to stay dry underneath Deathtrap.

Polly, her suit covered in blood and still standing on the remains of the giant skag, looked over at Gaige and struck a kung-fu pose. "Justice Prevails Once Again!"

Somehow, Gaige didn't get that impression while watching Bella whimper and nudge a bloody chunk that used to be its mother. Polly ran over and picked up the skag. She hugged it tightly and danced around a bit. "Don't worry Bella, you're safe now!" The skag hung limply in her arms, and its little legs swayed back and forth as Polly danced and hopped. Its spirit was completely crushed.

"Some ally of justice," Gaige said to herself. Then louder to Polly she said, "Come on, let's get out of here."

Polly let go of the skag and turned to Gaige as the powersuit disintegrated. "Oh no, your clothes got dirty Gaige. Sorry…"

Gaige looked down and noticed a few blood splatters here and there on the bulletproof copy of her school uniform, but it was nothing worth buying a new set of clothes over. "It's fine, I'll live." But Polly had already pulled out a wad of cash, and she shoved it into Gaige's hands much like the way she shoved food into Bella earlier.

"No no, I insist, it's my fault. I'm not worried about money anyways, the bounties Handsome Jack hired us for are huge!"

The hair on the back of Gaige's neck rose up. "Oh, that's cool. Hmmm, is that why you're in Lynchwood?" Gaige walked as casually as she could around Polly, getting behind the girl.

"Yup! I figured those villains would come for Jack's girlfriend first, but when I saw this poor puppy I got side-tracked I guess, heehee." Polly knelt to play with the skag at her feet, unaware of the pistol nearly touching the back of her head.

* * *

The rusty elevator went up slower than it went down, and Gaige sighed and tapped her feet impatiently as she and Deathtrap were slowly lifted out of the cavern. "What a pain."

Angel's face appeared on the ECHO HUD. "You did the right thing Gaige, I had faith in you."

Gaige smiled wryly. "I wasn't sure I could pull it off for a sec, that was scary."

"I'm sorry I wasn't able to warn you about her, I can't eavesdrop on all of their channels yet."

"It's whatever," said Gaige, as she walked out of the elevator and back towards town. "I mean, you saved us from the orbital bombardment, though it was your fault it happened… sigh, life's too complicated." Good and evil were mixing together and she couldn't separate them anymore; Handsome Jack was the closest thing they had to a straight up villain and even he declared himself the hero. Guess everyone wanted to be a hero. Good thing they weren't all as misguided as Polly.

"Well, I'm glad you're okay," said Angel, sounding a little embarrassed. "… And I hope one day you can trust me again."

"One day," said Gaige. "And then we can be friends, I'm sure it can happen."

"…that'd be nice." With those words and a smile, Angel left Gaige's ECHO device.

A video showing a litter of skag pups popped up then on the HUD.

"Gaige there's too many of them," came Polly's distressed voice. "You have to help me find homes for them. I-I can't take care of them all!"

After discovering some pups in the hole in the wall, Polly had stayed behind to gather the litter. But it appeared to be too much for her, the whining and growling of the lot grew louder by the second as more and more skag pups crawled out of the hole.

"Sorry Polly, I'm kinda busy. But I hear people in Sanctuary keep them as pets. You could try there." Gaige was specifically thinking of Crazy Earl, their black market contact, and the only person besides Polly insane enough to think skags make good pets. This ought to keep her busy for a while, especially if the fast travel stations were still down; she doubted Polly could fly.

"Aw I feel so guilty for killing their mom! Those bounties are going to have to wait. But thanks for the info on them anyways, man I would of never guessed their base is all the way out in ah, what'd you call it? The Uridium Blight?"

"Yeah, Eridium Blight." said Gaige enthusiastically. "Anyone that's been on Pandora as long as I have knows the Crimson Raiders set up their real secret base there, you have to _really_ look for it though. I hear it's super hard to find." And this ought to keep her busy forever.

The two of them said their cheerful goodbyes, and Gaige continued on her way back to town. "Hm, I wonder what that explosion was." Gaige decided to go find some answers.


End file.
